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THE LIFE 



JEREMY TAYLOR 



BISHOP OF DOWN, CONNOR, 
AND DEOMORE. 



GEOEGE L. DUYCKINCK. 




NEW YORK: 

(Sencval 13i-otcstaint JE^ifscopal Suntiai) Scljaol a^nfou, 
anTj Cljurcl) ijooft Socfeti), 

762 BKOADWAT. 
1800. ^. 



^^S-^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, 

By the General Pkotkstant Ei'iscopal Sunday School 

Unjun and Church Book Society, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 

Southern District of New York. 



REN-XIE, SHEA & LINDSAY, 

Stereotypkks and Electrotypjers, 

81, 80 & 85 Centr^-stret-t, 

Nbw Yokk. 



PUBLISHED 
BY THE SUNDAY SCHOOL CHILDREN 

OF 

ST. PAUL'S CHURCH, ALBAKY, 



THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED TO 

THE REV. FRANCIS L. HAWKS, D.D.,LL.D., 

AS A RESPECTFUL AND GRATEFUL TRIBUTE 

TO SERVICES 

IN THE PULPIT, THE SCHOOLHOUSE, AND THE STUDY, 

KINDRED WITH THOSE RECORDED 

IN ITS PAGES. 



PEEFACE. 



Owma to the unfortunate destruction by fire, early 
in the present century, of the papers illustrative of the 
career of Bishop Taylor, which had been collected from 
various branches of his family by his descendant, Wil- 
liam Todd Jones, the original materials for the biogra- 
phy of the great divine are but scant. The few letters, 
however, which remain are sufficient to confirm the im- 
pression made upon us by his books. 

"We find Bishop Taylor at once earnest and genial; 
accepting privation and imprisonment rather than abate 
a jot of devotion to political principles believed essential 
to the welfare of Church and country, but bearing to 
the seclusion thus imposed a cheerful temper, and di- 
viding his time between a provision, by the hard labor 
of the schoolmaster, for the temporal requirements of a 
large family, and a more bountiful endowment for the 
afflicted Church of his day and the larger family of his 
scattered brethren, which their descendants of more 
peaceful seasons have cherished and will ever cherish as 
among their choicest heritages. 



8 I'liLFACE. 

The facts for the foUovviog pages have been derive^ 
from the funeral sermon by Dr. Kust, and the Lives of 
Bishop Taylor by Archde^icon Bonney, Bishop Heber, 
and the Rev. Mr. E. A. Willmott. The account of 
Eowland Taylor is drawn from the venerable Book of 
Martyrs. The passages from Bishop Taylor's writings 
have been selected with care in the endeavor to present, 
so far as a small volume would allow, the finest prod- 
ucts of his glowing genius side by side with the inci- 
dents which in many cases gave them birth. 

New Yoek, February 10, 1860. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGB 

Hadley Parish— Dr. Eowland Taylor— Introduction of the Mass — 
Struggle — Dr. Taylor's arrest and imprisonment — The Litany — 
Interview at St. Botolph's Porch — Leaving the Woolpack Inn — 
Thomas Taylor and John Hull — Cheerfulness — " Dear Father and 
Good Shepherd" — Passing the alms-houses — The blind couple — At 
home— Brutal insults — The fire -. . 13 

CHAPTER II. 

Jeremy Taylor's father — Noble ancestiy — Position of a barber— 
Birthplace— A young pupil — Enters Caius College — Baptism — A 
Sizar — Domestic relations— Milton — Fellowship and degrees — Or- 
dination—Preaches at St. Paul's— His success— Archbishop Laud 
—Youth— Elected fellow at Oxford 25 

CHAPTER III. 

Chaplain to the archbishop — Francis k Sancta Clara— Christopher 
and John Davenport — The charge of Eomanism— Sermon on the 
Gunpowder Plot— Marriage— Letter to Dr. Langsdale — Its date — 
Yows in sickness— Children 33 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Crown and Parliament— The Church of England under Henry 
YIIL, Edward YI., Mary, and Elizabeth— James L— The Confer- 
ence — Points of difference— Charles I. — The Liturgy in Scotland — 
War with the Scots— Impeachment of Laud and Strafford— Acts 



10 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

of Parliament— Nottingham— Taylor joins the king's army— Oxford 
titles— Uppingham Parish— Isaac Massey— Dr. Taylor's imprison- 
ment— Ilis allusions to military affairs— The trooper — The soldier 
in a breach 40 

CHAPTEE Y. 

Episcopacy asserted— Toleration— Sir Christopher Hatton— Dugdale 
—The Directory— Apology for the Liturgy— The Psalter— The 
Civil War— King David— Church Union — Eetirement in Wales — 
Pe-marriage — Nicholson and Wyatt — Newton Hall — Powell and 
Lloyd — Grammar — Hatton the Younger — Interview with Charles 
I. — Liberty of Prophesying — Toleration — Abraham and his guest. . 52 



CHAPTEE YL 

The school — The Earl of Carbery — Golden Grove — Grongar Hill — 
The Countess of Carbery— Contentment— The Life of Christ— The 
Countess of Carbery's funeral sermon 67 

CHAPTER YII. 

Holy Living and Dying— Death — Sunrise— Sickness and submission 
— Sermons — Joy in Heaven — Prayer — Marriage — The triumph of 
Christianity —Parents 77 

CHAPTER YIIL 

The Peal Presence — Dr.Warner — Golden Grove — Hymns — Advent — 
Charity— State of religion — Imprisonment— John Evelyn — Unum 
Necessarium— Original sin— Dr. Warner — Again imprisoned — 
Dislike to controversy 89 

CHAPTER IX. 

Wants of Churchmen — Letters to Mr. Evelyn — Persecution — Yisit 
to London — Berkeley, Boyle, and Wilkins— Say's Court — Enjoy- 
ment of prosperity — Monsieur le Franc — A poor bishop — Mr. 
Thurland— Eesidence in London — Death of a child — Sacred poetry 
— Dies Irae — Domestic aflEliction 1 00 



CONTENTS. 11 



CHAPTER X. 

PAGE 

Eemoval to London— Deus Justificatus — Gaule and Jeanes — Contro- 
versy — Mr. Evelyn's benevolence — Dr. Taylor's acknowledgment 
—Collection of Works — Treatise on Friendship — Mrs. Phillips — 
Dr. Wedderburne— Episcopacy in London — Bishop Pearson — 
Imprisonment— Condolence 112 



CHAPTER XI. 

Lectureship— Letters to Mr. Evelyn— Eeligion — Interest — Dr. Petty 
— Lord Conway — Portmore — Loughs Neagh and Bag— Earn Island 
— Literary news — Tandy — Acknowledgments to Mr. Evelyn 126 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Ductor Dubitantiura— Death of Cromwell— The Declaration — 
Dedication— Works on Casuistry— Conscience— Ancient cabinet — 
Friar Clement — The Jewish law — Sanctity of churches — Justice 
and piety — Eandom shots— Scruples — Limited obligations 136 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Vacant bishoprics— Dr. Taylor's claims — Appointed to Down and 
Connor — Marquis of Ormond— The Worthy Communicant — Variety 
of views — The dove— Consecration — Bereavement — Incumbents 
of parishes — Agreement at Breda— Conference — Sectarian strife 
in Bishop Taylor's diocese— Scotch and Irish— Trinity College — 
Dromore — Conciliation 146 



CHAPTER XIY. 

Sermon before the Irish Parliament— Surplices— Justice— Pity— Mr. 
Evelyn— Choir of Dromore Cathedral— Dr. Eust— Sermon before 
Trinity College— The wolf at school— Preformation — Confirmation 
— Sermon at the funeral of the Lord Primate — The hopes of man 
— The triumph of the Cross 155 



12 CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XV. 

PAGE 

Dissuasive from Popery— Obstacles to Protestantism in Ireland — 
Irish clergy — Duel — Charles Taylor — Death— Posthumous Works 
— Dr. Eust's sermon — Bishop Taylor's remains— His widow and 
daughters— William Todd Jones— Edward Jones«— Personal appear- 
ance—Portraits 165 



CHAPTER XYI. 

The Shakespeare of Theology — Books and Nature — A library of 
theology— Extracts— Amplification — Varied learning— An indus- 
trious and practised writer— Not an ascetic— Dedications— Elo- 
quence— Original delivery — Permanence of reputation— Parallel — 
Conclusion , 174 



THE LIFE OF 

JEREMY TAYLOE- 

CHAPTER I. 

HADLET PAEI8H — DE. ROWLAND TAYLOE — INTEODUCTION 
OF THE MASS — STETJGGLE-^DE. TAYLOE's AEEEST AND 
IMPEISONMENT — THE LITANY — INTEEYIEW AT ST. BO- 

TOLPH's POECH — LEAVING THE WOOLPAOK INN THOMAS 

TAYLOE AND JOHN HULL CHEEEFULNESS " DEAE FA- 

THEE AND GOOD SHEPHEED" — PASSING THE ALMS-HOUSES 
—THE BLIND COUPLE — AT HOME — BEUTAL INSULTS— 
THE FIEE. 

THE town of Hadley, in Suffolk, enjoys the 
honorable distinction of having been one 
of the first in all England to /receive Protest- 
antism. Under the direction of the worthy 
Dr. Thomas Bilney, the inhabitants became so 
versed in the Scriptures and theology, that 
"the whole town seemed rather a university 
of the learned than a town of cloth-making or 
laboring people." 

Dr. Eowland Taylor came from the family 
2 



li THE LIFP: of JERKMY TAYLOR. 

of Archbishop Cranmer to take charge of this 
well-prepared parish. He worked zealously 
as a rector, allowing no Sunday or Holyday, 
or other time when he could collect the people 
together, to pass without a sermon. His life 
and conversation were a perpetual exhortation 
to holiness by their display of its beauty. He 
was kind and charitable to the sick and needy, 
gentle to all ; but when occasion of admonition 
arose, he spared neither rich nor poor. Love 
and favor naturally followed his footsteps as 
he walked through his parish, and this happy 
state of things continued all the daj^s of King 
Edward's reign. The accession of Mary 
brought a terrible change, which Dr. Taylor 
was among the first to feel. 

Koman Catholicism having been restored 
as the state worship, one Foster, " a certain 
petty gentleman after the sort of a lawyer," as 
he is oddly described by Fox, who adds, " a 
man of no great skill, but a bitter persecutor 
in those days," hired John Averth, the Eomish 
parson of Aldam, " a very money mammonist," 
to come to Hadley church and celebrate mass 
therein. Preparations were commenced by 
setting up an altar, which was broken down. 
It was repaired, and a guard set to watch it. 



JKEFUSAL TO ESCAPE. 15 

The next day Foster appeared with one Gierke, 
of Hadley, and the Eoman Catholic priest, and 
with arm-ed retainers to prevent interference, 
commenced mass. Dr. Taylor, hearing the 
bells, repaired to the chnrch ; the doors were 
shut and barred, but passing to the rear he 
found the chancel door only latched. Enter- 
ing, he at once denounced the proceedings, and 
commanded the ''popish wolf" to begone. 
After a few words of discussion, the rector 
v/as forced out, and the mass continued. The 
.people flocking to eject the abhorred worship, 
were refused admission. Some threw stones 
through the windows, narrowly missing the 
intruder. 

A few days after. Dr. Taylor was ordered, on 
the complaint of Foster and Gierke, to appear 
before the Lord Ghancellor, Stephen Gardiner, 
bishop of Winchester. His parishioners urged 
him to seek safety by flight. " Our Saviour 
Ghrist," they told him, " willeth and biddeth 
us that when they persecute us in one city we 
should fly to another." But Dr. Taylor would 
not be persuaded. " I will," he said, " by God's 
grace, go and appear before them, and to their 
beards resist their false doing." In a day or 
two he departed, leaving his parish in charge 



16 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

of " a godly old jDriest," Eicliard Yeoman, who 
soon after suffered martyrdom at Norwich. 
Arriving at London, lie presented himself be- 
fore Gardiner. At the close of their interview 
he was committed to King's Bench prison, 
where he remained almost two years. After 
several examinations he was finally con- 
demned. On the fourth of February, 1555, 
Edward Bonner, bishop of London, of infa- 
mous memory as a persecutor, came to his 
prison to degrade him. Bonner promised Dr. 
Taylor if he would recant, a pardon, and that* 
''he would do well enough." He had been 
previously tempted with a bishopric. Dr. 
Taylor, refusing, was, after the usual ceremo- 
nies, declared to be no longer a priest. On 
the same evenino^ his wife and son were al- 
lowed to pay him. a short visit: As soon as 
they came in, all kneeled down and repeated 
the Litany. The remaining time was occupied 
by him in affectionate counsels. On parting, 
he presented to his wife a copy of the Book of 
Common Prayer, as authorized in King Ed- 
ward's reign, and to his son " a Latin book con- 
taining the notable sayings of the old martyrs, 
gathered out of the Ecclesiastical History," on 
the fly-leaf of which he had written his last 



ST. BOTOLPIl's PORCH. 17 

will. He signed it " Kowland Taylor, depart- 
ing hence in sure hope, without all doubting 
of eternal salvation, I thank God my heaven- 
ly Father, through Jesus Christ my certain 
Saviour." At two o'clock the same night the 
sheriff of London with his men came and re- 
moved Dr. Taylor to the Woolpack inn. Mrs. 
Taylor, anticipating this, had meanwhile kept 
watch all night in the porch of St. Botolph's 
church, with her two daughters. The affect- 
ing scene, with others which are to follow, 
cannot be better told than in the simple and 
beautiful record of John Fox's jBook of Mar- 
tyrs, 

^'IsTow, when the sheriff and his company 
came against St. Botolph's church, Elizabeth 
cried, saying, ' O my dear father ; mother, 
mother, here is my father led away!' Then 
his wife said, ' Rowland, Rowland, where art 
thou?' For it was a very dark morning, that 
the one could not see the other. Dr. Taylor 
answered, ' Dear wife, I am here, and stayed.' 
The sheriff's men would have led him forth, 
but the sheriff said, ' Stay a little, masters, I 
pray you, and let him speak to his wife,' and 
so they stayed. 

"Then she came to him, and he took his 



18 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

daiigliter Mary in his arms, and he, his wife, 
and Elizabeth, kneeled down and said the 
Lord's Prayer. At which sight the sheriff 
wept apace, and so did several others of the 
company. After they had prayed, he rose np 
and kissed his wife, and shook her by the 
hand, and said, ' Farewell, my dear wife ; be 
of good comfort, for I am quiet in my con- 
science. God shall stir np a father for my 
children.' And then he kissed his daughter 
Mary, and said, ' God bless thee, and make 
thee his servant :' and kissing Elizabeth, he 
said, ' God bless thee. I pray yon all stand 
steadfast nnto Christ and His Word, and keep 
you from idolatry.' Then, said his wife, ' God 
be with thee, dear Rowland ; I will with God's 
grace meet thee at Hadley.' " 

Dr. Taylor remained at the Woolpack nntil 
eleven o'clock, when he was taken in charge 
by the sheriff of Essex county, and the party 
left the inn on horseback. As they passed 
the gate, which had been closed to exclude 
the people, they found Thomas, Dr. Taylor's 
son, with his faithful servant, John Hull. 
" When Dr. Taylor saw them, he called them, 
saying, ' Come hither, my son Thomas.' And 
John Hull lifted the child up and set him 



THE LAST JOURNEY. 19 

on the horse before his father : and Dr. Taylor 
put off his hat, and said to the people that 
stood there looking on him, ' Good people, this 
is mine own son, begotten of my body in law- 
ful matrimony ; and God be blessed for lawful 
matrimony.' Then he lifted up his eyes to- 
wards heaven and prayed for his son ; laid his 
hand npon the child's head and blessed him, 
and so delivered the child to John Hull, whom 
he took by the hand and said, ' Farewell, John 
Hull, the faithfullest servant that ever man 
had.' And so they rode forth." As they pro- 
ceeded, they covered Dr. Taylor's head and 
face with a close hood, with slits before the 
eyes, that he might not be recognized. 

" All the way," the chronicle continnes, 
'' Dr. Taylor was joyful and merry, as one that 
accounted himself going to a most pleasant 
banqnet or marriage. He spake many notable 
things to the sheriff and yeomen of the guard 
that conducted him, and often moved them to 
weep through his much earnest calling upon 
them to repent, and to amend their evil and 
wicked living. Oftentimes also he caused them 
to wonder and rejoice, to see him so constant 
and steadfast, void of all fear, joyful in heart, 
and glad to die." 



20 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOE. 

At Chelmsford, Di\ Taylor was delivered to 
the sherifl' of Suffolk county, who accompa- 
nied him to Hadley. The party remained two 
days at Lanham, where they were joined by 
"a great number of gentlemen and justices 
upon great horses, which all were appointed 
to aid the sheriff." These gentlemen endeav- 
ored to induce Dr. Taylor to recant, promising 
him if he would do so, his pardon, which they 
held ready, and an appointment to a bishop- 
ric, but without success. 

As they entered Hadley, they found a poor 
man with five small children, who, as soon as 
he saw Dr. Taylor, knelt down with his chil- 
dren, " and cried with a loud voice, ' O dear 
father and good shepherd, Dr. Taylor, God 
help and succor thee, as thou hast many a time 
succored me and my poor children.' " As they 
passed along, the streets " were beset on both 
sides the way with men and women of the 
town and country, who waited to see him ; 
whom when they beheld so led to death, with 
weeping eyes and lamentable voices they cried, 
saying one to another, ' Ah, good Lord ! tliere 
goeth our good shepherd from us, that so faith- 
fully hath taught us, so fatherly hath cared 
for us, and so godly hath governed us : O 



THE POOR AT THE ALMS-HOUSE. 21 

merciful God ! what shall we poor scattered 
lambs do ? What shall come of this m.ost 
wicked world ? Good Lord strengthen him 
and comfort him ;' with such other most lam- 
entable and piteous voices. Wherefore the 
people were sore rebuked by the sheriff and 
catchpoles his men, that led him. And Dr. 
Taylor always said to the people, 'I have 
preached to you God's word and truth, and 
am come this day to seal it with my blood.' " 

As he passed the alms-houses, a row of small 
tenements, each occupied by a separate family, 
he distributed to the people at the doors the 
little money remaining of that which he had 
himself received in alms, — his living having 
been taken from him when he was first im- 
prisoned, and his support having been since 
derived entirely from the gifts of charitable 
persons who visited him. 

As he came to the last alms-house, " not see- 
ing the poor that dwelt there ready at their 
doors as the others were, he asked, 'Is the 
blind man and blind woman that dwelt here 
alive V It was answered, ' Tea, they are with- 
in.' Then he threw the glove (which he had 
used as a purse) and all in at the window, and 
so rode forth." 



22 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOE. 

When lie came to Aldliam Common, where 
he was to sufter, he exclaimed, " Thanked be 
God, I am even at home," and alightmg from 
his horse, tore off his hood. As the people, 
assembled in great mnltitude, " saw his rev- 
erend and ancient face, with a long white 
beard, they burst out with weeping tears, and 
cried, saying, ' God save thee, good Dr. Taylor ; 
Jesus Christ strengthen thee, and hel]3 thee ; 
the Holy Ghost comfort thee ;' with such 
other like good wishes.'' He attempted to 
speak to the people, but one or another of the 
guard, thrusting a staff into his mouth, pre- 
vented him. He then appealed to the sheriff, 
who reminded him of his promise to the Coun- 
cil. '• "Well,'' said Dr. Taylor, '- promise must 
be kept." The agreement is not known, but 
the common report at the time was, that after 
the condemnation of himself and others, the 
Council had threatened that they would cut out 
the prisoners' tongues, unless they promised 
not to addi^ess the people at the time of their 
execution. Like the wicked rulers of olden 
time, these tyrants '' feared the people.'' Find- 
ing that he could not speak, he sat down, and 
called to one Joyce, *• I pray thee, come and 
pull off my boots, and take them for thy la- 



1 



AT THE STAKE. 23 

bor ; thou hast long looked for them, now take 
them." Putting off* all but his shirt, he cried 
with a loud voice, " Good people, 1 have taught 
you nothing but God's holy Word ; and those 
lessons that I have taken out of God's blessed 
book, the Holy Bible ; and I am come hither 
this day to seal it with my blood." Here he 
was interrupted by a brutal guard, who struck 
him on the head. He then knelt down and 
prayed. "A poor woman that was among 
the people, pushed forward and knelt with 
him. She was thrust away and threatened to 
be trampled down by the horses, but was not 
to be forced away." 

His prayer ended, Dr. Taylor went to the 
stake, kissed it, and then placing himself in a 
pitch barrel which had been provided, stood 
upright, " with his hands folded together, and 
his eyes towards heaven, and so he continually 
prayed." 

He was then bound with chains ; and the 
sheriff ordered Richard Donningham to set up 
the fagots, but he refused to do so, saying, " I 
am lame, sir,, and not able to lift a fagot." 
He was threatened with prison, but still re- 
fused. Four others were appointed " to set 
up the fagots, and to make the ffre, which 



24: THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

they most diligently did." One of them, a 
ruffian, threw a fagot in Dr. Taylor's face, 
wounding him. " O friend," said the martyr, 
" I have harm enough, what needed that ?" 

As he continued his devotions, repeating the 
Psalm Miserere in English, one Sir John Shel- 
ton struck him on the lips, saying, '' Te knave, 
speak Latin ; I will make thee." 

"At last they kindled the fire; and Dr. 
Taylor, holding up both his hands, called upon 
God, and said, ^ Merciful Father of heaven, for 
Jesus Christ my Saviour's sake, receive my 
soul into thy hands.' So stood he still without 
either crying or moving, with his hands folded 
together, till Joyce, with a halberd, struck him 
on the head that the brains fell out, and the 
corpse fell down into the fire. 

" Thus rendered the man of God his blessed 
soul into the hands of his merciful Father, and 
to his most dear and certain Saviour Jesus 
Christ, whom he most entirely loved, faithful- 
ly and earnestly preached, obediently followed 
in living, and constantly glorified in death." 



CHAPTER II. 

JEEEMY TAYLOe's FATHEE — NOBLE ANOESTEY — POSITION 
OP A BAEBEE — BIETHPLACE — A YOXTN^ PUPIL — ENTEES 
CAITJS COLLEGE — BAPTISM — A SIZAE — DOMESTIC EELA- 

TIONS — MILTON FELLOWSHIP AND DEGEEES — OEDINA- 

TION — PEEACHES AT ST. PAIIl's — HIS SUCCESS — AECH- 
BISHOP LAUD YOUTH — ELECTED FELLOW AT OXFOED. 

THE exact date of the birtli of Jeremy Tay- 
lor is not known. He was baptized on the 
fifteenth day of August, 1613. His father, 
Nathaniel Taylor, was a barber. Notwith- 
standing his humble calling and limited means, 
he could boast an ancestry nobler than that of 
many titled families. He was a descendant 
from Dr. Rowland Taylor, the confessor for 
the faith of the Church of England. No post 
of military fame, no service for country, could 
entail as great a glory as this enlistment in 
^'the noble army of martyrs." No herald's 
cunning could illuminate so bright an escutch- 
eon as the reflected blaze of the fire at Hadley. 
The calling of a barber was more important 
at that time than of late years. Many minor 

3 



26 THE LIFE OF JEEEMY TAYLOR. 

operations of surgeiy, such as blood-letting 
and tooth-drawing, were committed to his 
care ; a practice still continued in countries 
which, like Sj)ain for instance, seem to have 
known no growth of a social nature for the 
past two centuries. Taking all this into ac- 
count, however, it was still an humble station, 
and the advancement of Jeremy Taylor, like 
that of many other great men in English his- 
tory, teaches the republican doctrine, that 
" Honor and shame from no condition rise." 

Two houses, still in existence, claim to have 
been the birthplace of Jeremy Taylor. Both 
are now occupied as inns. One, with a sign 
of slightly academic suggestiveness, '^The 
Wrestlers," is in the street called the Petty 
Cury ; the other, with the bluff and brief name 
of ''The Black Bear,''"^ is opposite Trinity 
church, and seems to have the best claim to 
the coveted distinction. 

We find ]\Ir. Taylor filling, in 1621, the 
ofiice of Churchwarden ; and we learn from a 
letter by his son, written some time after, that 
he was reasonably learned, " and had solely 
o:rounded his children in mathematics." He 

^ GeniUmaiis Magazine, April, 1855, p. 377. 



SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 27 

took early care for the education of his son 
Jeremy, for we find the child, in 1616, one of 
the pupils of a free-school endowed by the be- 
quest of Dr. Stephen Perse, Senior Fellow of 
Oaius College. Jeremy must have been one 
of the earliest beneficiaries, and the trust have 
been administered with exemplary prompti- 
tude, for the death of Dr. Perse occurred only 
the year before. 

The pupil doubtless made rapid progress, 
notwithstanding his tender age, for we find 
him ten years later, entered at Oaius College 
on the eighteenth of August, 1626. He is 
stated in the college admission-book to have 
been in his fifteenth year. In the funeral ser- 
mon by his friend Bishop Bust, he is said to 
have entered ''by the time he was thirteen 
years old." The latter authority, that of a 
personal friend, has been followed by the 
Bishop's biographers. The latest of these, Mr. 
Willmott, however, suggests that as we possess 
only the date of Taylor's baptism, we cannot 
positively convict the register of error. A 
passage in one of his writings shows that bap- 
tism was at the period usually administered 
soon after birth. " We are," says Dr. Taylor, 
'' born of Christian parents, made Christians 



28 



THE LIFE OF JEKEMY TAYLOR. 



at ten days old." Jeremy Taylor is entered 
as " Filiiis JSTathanielis Tayloris, tonsoris Can- 
tabrigise," so that his father still continued his 
avocation of barber. The young student en- 
tered college as a sizar. A sizar was one 
who received the same education with those 
of greater means, but was expected to perform 
a few of the offices of a servant, such as wait- 
ing at table. Bishop Heber has shown in 
his Ztfe of Taylor, that the practice must be 
judged by the simple manners of the age 
which witnessed its origin, when duties of the 
class required of the sizar were wiUingly paid, 
as they are to some extent to this day, by the 
lord to the sovereign, and by the vassal to the 
lord. Master and servant in those old times, 
as in many of our farm-houses at the present 
time, took their meals together at the long 
table in the old hall, and were associated in 
like manner in many other scenes of domestic 
routine. 

Jeremy Taylor, for a portion of his collegiate 
course, was a fellow-student of John Milton. 
The poet had entered Christ's College in the 
year 1625. There is no record of any intimacy 
between the two, and the active part which 
they took on opposite sides in the great con- 



A FELLOW AT CAIUS. 29 

test whicli occupied so large a portion of their 
lives, prevented the intercourse which might 
have been naturally anticipated between the 
master of prose and the master of verse. Mil- 
ton is, however, known to have been through 
life a great reader and admirer of Dr. Taylor's 
eloquent writings. 

An examination of the books of Caius Col- 
lege, by " A Caius Man," who has communi- 
cated the results of his searches to the public 
in the pages of the Gentlema7i^s Magazine^^ 
shows Jeremy Taylor to have remained a sizar 
for nearly two years. He then received one 
of the scholarships founded by Dr. Perse, and 
retained this position for five years, when he 
was made a Fellow. The college records con- 
tain the names of several undergraduates in- 
structed by him. Among these we find the 
name of Edward Landisdale, who is supposed 
to be the same person who afterwards became 
Dr. Taylor's brother-in-law. 

He received his degree of Master of Arts 
about the same time with his Fellowship, and 
was soon after ordained, before he was twenty- 
one years of age. 



* GentlemarC s Magazine, April, 1855. 
3* 



30 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOK. 

Tlie Toung clergyman was at once placed 
prominently before tlie pnblic. His college 
room-mate, or '* chnm," as the relation was 
then as now famfliai'ly expressed, itr. Eisden, 
who had been appointed lectnrer at St. Panl's 
Cathedral, invited his former associate to oc- 
cupy his pulpit for a short period. Bishop 
Rust records the vounor divine's success in en- 
thusiastic terms. ^' He preached to the admi- 
ration and astonishment of his auditory, and 
by his florid and youthful beauty, and sweet 
and pleasant air, and sublime and raised dis- 
courses, he made his hearers take him for some 
young angel, newly descended from the visions 
of o^lorv.'' The lano^uaore is extravaorant, but 
when we recall the florid eloquence of Taylor's 
published wi'itings, and which no doubt per- 
vaded to an even less restrained degree these 
eaiiy compositions, and c-^nsider the eflect of 
such words from a speaker whose countenance, 
even when marked by the care and study of 
after years, retained convincing proof of early 
beauty, heightened by an habitual grace of 
manner and melody of voice, we cannot but 
receive its testimony as truthful. 

The fame of these discourses soon reached 
the ears of Aichbishop Laud, who invited the 



FIRST SERMONS. 31 

young divine to preach at liis cliapel at Lam- 
beth. " He performed the task," Bishop Rust 
informs us, '' not less to the Archbishop's won- 
der than satisfaction : his discourse was be- 
yond exception, and beyond imitation. The 
wise prelate," Rust continues, " thought him 
too young, but the great youth humbly begged 
his grace to pardon that fault, and promised, 
if he lived, he would mend it." The sprightly 
reply probably helped to confirm the Arch- 
bishop's good opinion, but he wisely perse- 
vered in his endeavor to withdraw the youth 
from a too early public career, thinking it " for 
the advantage of the world that such mighty 
parts should be afforded better opportunities 
of study and improvement than a course of 
constant preaching would allow of." 

It is not known whether Mr. Taylor, after 
this interview, returned to Cambridge, or, ac- 
cording to a tradition mentioned by Bishop 
Heber, pursued his studies in some country 
retirement. He resigned his Fellowship at 
Cambridge in 1636, and on the twentieth of 
October in the same year, was admitted a 
Master of Arts in University College, Oxford. 
He was proposed ten days after as a Fellow. 
Although candidates were required by the 



32 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

statutes to have been connected with the uni- 
versity for three years, he received a majority 
of the votes cast ; but the "Warden, or head of 
the college, refused to take part in the elec- 
tion. In consequence of this, the Fellows per- 
sisting in their choice, no election took place, 
and the appointment passed into the hands of 
the Archbishop, as Visitor of the college. As 
Mr. Taylor's change of residence and nomina- 
tion had been effected at the prelate's request, 
he exercised his privilege by appointing hia 
friend to the vacant place. 



CHAPTEE III. 

CHAPLAIN TO THE ARCHBISHOP — FEANCIS A SANCTA CLAEA 

CHEISTOPHEE AND JOHN DAYENPOET THE CHAEGE 

OF EOMANISM — SEEMON ON THE GUNPOWDEE PLOT — 

MAEEIAGE — LETTEE TO DE. LANOSDALE — ITS DATE 

VOWS IN SICKNESS — CHILDEEN. 

MR. TAYLOR was soon after appointed one 
of the Archbishop's chaplains. This was 
followed, on the 23d of March, 163T, by a pres- 
entation by Dr. Jnxon, bishop of London, prob- 
ably through the influence of the Archbishop, 
to the Rectory of Uppingham, in Rutlandshire. 
The duties connected with the chaplaincy and 
the parish of course led to frequent absences 
from the university. Little is known respect- 
ing the four years of his fellowship. He is 
said by Anthony a Wood, to have been 
charged with a leaning to Romanism. The 
rumor appears to have arisen from his intima- 
cy with a learned Franciscan friar, known as 
Francis a Sancta Clara. An interesting ac- 
count of this remarkable personage is given by 
Bishop Heber. His real name was Christo- 



34 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

pher Davenport. Born of Protestant parents, 
he was entered, at the age of fifteen, with his 
brother John, as a 'battler^ or poor scholar, at 
Merton College, Oxford, in the year 1613. 
The brothers separated widely in their relig- 
ions opinions. John became a Puritan and af- 
terwards an Independent. Christopher, after 
passing two years at Merton, fled to the French 
College of Douay, with a Roman Catholic 
priest, where he joined the Franciscan order. 
After wandering for several years among the 
nniversities of the Low Countries and Spain 
he returned to England, where he was made 
one of Queen Henrietta's chaplains, and la- 
bored earnestly though quietly for fifty years 
in the service of his church. He is said by 
Wood to have been much esteemed '' by many 
great and worthy persons." His numerous 
works are for the most part moderate in tone, 
too much so to suit the tastes of the authorities 
of Pome, since we find one of his productions, 
Deus^ Natura^ Oratia^ on the Index Exjpiir- 
gatorius in Spain, and narrowly escaping a 
public burning in Italy. He became, after the 
Pestoration, princij)al chaplain to the queen of 
Charles the Second, and provincial of his order 
in England. He made many friends at Ox- 



ClIAEGE OF liOMANISM. 35 

ford, where lie frequently took slielter from 
his opponents, and died at a great age, in 1680, 
at London. 

The society of this well-furnished scholar, of 
such varied experience, was doubtless attract- 
ive. A charge similar to that brought against 
Taylor was made against the Archbishop upon 
his trial. Both were without foundation, but 
they are noteworthy as instances of a slander 
which seems to be of periodical recurrence in 
every season of active Protestant discussion. 
The charge clung to Dr. Taylor through life, 
notwithstanding his repeated condemnation of 
Romish error in the rapid succession of his 
published works. 

Wood, in support of this early charge of 
Eomanist tendencies, tells us that Taylor hav- 
ing been appointed to preach on the anniver- 
sary of the Gunpowder Plot, the Vice-chancel- 
lor insisted on inserting many passages high- 
ly offensive to the Roman Catholics, and that 
after the delivery of the discourse, the preacher 
expressed his regret for these expressions to 
his Franciscan friend. The sermon, which has 
been published, is a refutation of the first part 
of the story. It presents a connected argu* 
ment, exhibiting the consistency of the Ro* 



36 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

mish system with intrigue and plot, so inter- 
woven with the entire composition that it 
conld not have been introduced at the sugges- 
tion of another, without rewriting the whole. 
As regards the latter portion, the preacher may, 
it is well suggested by ]Mi\ "Willmott, have 
made an apology for the tone of his remarks, 
without possessing the least sympathy with 
the views of his opponent. 

His denial of the charge in a letter to a 
friend, on a subsequent revival of the slander, 
is clear and emphatic : " Sir, that party which 
need such lying stories for the support of their 
cause, proclaim their cause to be very weak, 
or themselves to be very evil advocates. Sir, 
be confident, they dare not tempt me to do so, 
and it is not the first time they have en- 
deavored to serve their ends by saying such 
things of me. But, I bless God for it, it is 
perfectly a slander, and it shall, I hope, for 
ever prove so." 

Our next record is one in pleasant contrast 
with strife and contention. Mr. Taylor, then 
in his twenty-sixth year, was married, on the 
twenty-seventh of May, 1639, in his church at 
Uppingham, to Phebe Langsdale. Nothing is 
known of the lady's family except from a letter 



LETTER TO DE. LAIS^GSDALE. 37 

by her husband, preserved in the British Mu- 
seum, addressed " To my very dear brother, 
Dr. Langsdale, at his Apothecary's House in 
Gainsborough." The handwriting, Mr. Will- 
mott informs us, is " of peculiar neatness, re- 
calling the delicate characters of Gray." The 
letter presents an admirable picture of " breth- 
ren in unity," and contains equally admirable 
counsel of universal application. Dr. Langs- 
dale afterwards removed to Leeds, where he 
was buried, January 7, 1683. 

Dear Brother^ 

Thy letter was most welcome to me, 
bringing the happy news of thy recovery. I 
had notice of thy danger, but watched for 
this happy relation, and had laid wait with 
Royston to inquire of Mr. Rumbould. I 
hope I shall not need to bid thee be careful for 
the perfecting thy health and to be fearful of 
a relapse, though I am very much, yet thou 
thyself art more concerned in it. But this I 
will remind thee of, that thou be infinitely 
[careful] to perform to God all those holy 
promises which I suppose thou didst make in 
thy sickness, and remember what thoughts 
thou hadst then, and bear them along upon 

4 



38 THE LIFE OF JEEEMY TAYLOR. 

tliy spirit all tliy lifetime ; for that wliich was 
true then, is so still ; and the world is really 
as vain a thing, as thou didst then suppose it. 
I durst not tell thy mother of thy danger 
(though I heard of it), till at the same time I 
told her of thy recovery. Poor woman ! she 
was troubled and pleased at the same time ; 
but your letter did determine her. I take it 
kindly that thou hast writ to Bowman. If I 
had been in condition, you should not have 
been troubled with it, but, as it is, thou and I 
must be content. Thy mother sends her bless- 
ing to her and her little Mally ; so do I, and 
my prayers to God for you both. Tour little 
cousins are your servants, and I am thy most 
affectionate and endeared brother, 

November 24, 1643. J^^' TaylOR. 

There is a doubt respecting the date of this 
letter. The writer in the Gentleman's Maga- 
zine whom we have already cited, states 
that the original appears " on reference to the 
MS. (No. 4274, § 125), to have been dated, No- 
vember 24, 1653, in the same somewhat faded 
ink as the body of the letter. But on the 5 
has been written 4 in darker ink." 

Tlie question of course arises as to the period 



DEATH OF MES. TAYLOR. 39 

of this alteration. The " Cains Man" inclines to 
the supposition that it is a modern alteration, 
from the fact that the letter is registered in 
the '' Catalogue of original Letters and other 
Autographs," prefixed to the volume by its 
collector Thoresby, under 1653. If this date is 
adopted, we may suppose the " little cousins" at 
the close of the letter to have been Mr. Taylor's 
two children, the word at that time having the 
general meaning of relation. " Little Mally" 
was Dr. Langsdale's daughter, and afterwards 
became Mrs. Mary Potter."^ 

Mr. Taylor had three sons by this marriage. 
The youngest of these, William, died on the 
28th of May, 1642, and was followed soon af- 
ter by his mother. The two remaining sons 
grew to man's estate, but preceded their father, 
though by no long interval, to the grave. 

^ Gentleman's Magazine, April, 1855. 



CHAPTEE lY. 

THE CEOWN AND PAELIAMEXT — THE CHrECH OF ENGLAND 
UNDEE HENEY YIII., EDWAED YI., MAEY, AND ELIZABETH 

JAMES I. — THE CONFEEENCE — POINTS OF DIFFEEENCE 

OHAELES I. — THE LITUEOY IN SCOTLAND WAE TTITH 

THE SCOTS — IMPEACHMENT OF LAUD AND STEAFFOED — 
ACTS OF PAELIAMENT — NOTTINGHAM — TAYLOE JOINS 
THE king's AEMY — OXFOED TITLES — UPPINGHAM PAE- 
ISH — ISAAC MASSEY — DE. TAYLOE's IMPEISONMENT — HIS 
ALLUSIONS TO MILITAEY AFFAIES — THE TEOOPEE — THE 
SOLDIEE IN A BEEACH. 

THE long straggle between tlie Crown and 
Parliament is one of tlie most important 
passages in English history. It is impossible 
for us, within our present limits, to convey 
any adequate idea of the great contest; but 
it is at the same time necessary to put the 
reader in possession, to some extent, of the 
state of affairs which summoned Jeremy Tay- 
lor from his quiet parish duties and the de- 
lights of study, to the rude and stirring life of 
the camp. 

The English nation seem to have very gp.n 



1 



MARY AND ELIZABETH. 41 

erally acquiesced in the Reformation under 
Heniy YIII., and tlie arrangement of the Lit- 
urgy and constitution of the Church during 
the brief reign of Edward YI. The relapse to 
Popery under Mary, while it strengthened the 
hold of the Reformers upon the affections of 
the people, by the testimony sealed with blood 
at the many martyr fires throughout the land, 
sowed seeds of evil which w^ere not developed 
until the reign of her successor. The Marian 
persecution drove many of the reformed clergy 
to the Continent, where they became acquaint- 
ed with a class of learned and excellent men, 
who carried their opposition to Popery so far 
as violently to denounce Episcopacy, clerical 
vestments, the use of a liturgy, the sign of the 
cross in baptism, and other matters regarded 
in England as indispensable to the permanence 
and good order of the Church. They returned 
to their native country, when the Church of 
England was restored to power, to urge these 
views. A law requiring entire uniformity in 
religious worship, passed soon after, probably 
tended to exasperate this party and, as is 
usually the case with any legislation which 
can be charged with persecution, to increase 
its numbers. While affairs were in this angry 
4* 



4:2 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

state Elizabetli died, and James tlie First as* 
cended tlie throne. 

One of the first acts of the new monarch 
was to summon a conference for the settlement 
of religious opinions and observances. It was, 
however, conducted by the King with such 
outrageous disregard to the party of objectors, 
that the great opportunity for conciliation was 
lost, and matters became worse than before. 
The King was narrow minded and despotic. 
The zeal of the Bishops unfortunately identi- 
fied the Church of England with this false pol- 
icy. Naturally desirous to establish uniformi- 
ty of ritual observance, they fell into the error, 
common in that age to all forms of religious 
belief, of supposing that this could be eff'ected 
by force. Had they adopted the tolerant prac- 
tice of the Church at the present day, espe- 
cially in this country, the unhappy divisions 
which now disgrace the Protestant cause 
might have been prevented. The non-con- 
formists had not yet become dissenters. They 
acquiesced very generally in the rule of bish- 
ops and the use of the Liturgy. It really seems 
strange that the chief points of diff'erence were 
the use of the surplice and episcopal robe, the 
cross in baptism, the ring in matrimony, the 



JAMES AI^D CHARLES. 43 

bowing in the creed, the kneeling at the sacra- 
ment. In this country, none of these things 
have ever been enforced, and the consequence 
has been that their inherent beauty and fitness 
have quietly led to their universal adoption 
within the Episcopal ranks. 

The King's weak love of rule soon brought 
him into difficulties with his Parliament, and 
this forced him to various mean shifts to raise 
money without their sanction. He was too 
timid to suffer affairs to come to an open rup- 
ture, but his frequent concessions being fol- 
lowed by renewed attempts to tyrannize, their 
good effect was entirely lost. 

During this distracted state of affairs James 
was succeeded by his son Charles. The new 
monarch, reared in a bad school, made similar 
mistakes of an arbitrary character at the outset 
of his reign. Opposed by Parliament, he at 
last determined to rule without its support. 
He persevered in this unwise course for sev- 
eral years, raising money by various pretexts, 
and endeavoring to enforce religious conform- 
ity by the strong arm of power. By the ad- 
vice of Archbishop Laud a liturgy was pre- 
pared for Scotland. On the day of its intro^ 
duction a riot interrupted the services at 



44 THE LITE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

St. Giles' dmrch, Edinburgh. The Solemn 
League and Covenant, an agreement to sup- 
port the Presbyterianism which had held near- 
ly undisputed sway since the time of John 
Ejiox, received many signatures. The King 
raised an army and entered Scotland to sub- 
due the revolt. A compromise was effected 
and the King returned. He had scarcely done 
so, when the Scottish Parliament and General 
Assembly voted Episcopacy unlawful, and the 
High Commission Court, a recently established 
tribunal, tyrannical. The Parliament was pro- 
rogued before these measures could become 
laws. The King determined to send a second 
army. As his means were exhausted, and in 
the present temper of the nation he could not 
venture on any irregular expedient to raise 
money, he was compelled to summon Parlia- 
ment. 

Parliament met on the 13th of April, 1640. 
It was foolishly dissolved by the King on the 
fifth of May. He resorted to money-lenders, 
and obtaining a supply advanced against the 
Scots. His army was defeated at Newburn, 
and a dishonorable truce effected. He was 
now compelled again to summon Parliament. 
One of the first acts of that bodv was to im« 



TAYLOK JOIN'S THE ROYAL FORCES. 45 

peach the kmg's chief counsellors. Archbishop 
Land, and Thomas Wentworth, earl of Straf- 
ford, of high treason. Both were committed 
to prison, and StraiFord, having been convicted, 
was, with the king's consent, beheaded. These 
and other measures appeased the opposition, 
and the king's popularity was returning, when 
by an absurd attempt to arrest several mem- 
bers of Parliament, he again aroused distrust 
and discontent. Acts were passed, excluding 
bishops from the House of Peers, and for rais- 
ing forces. Both of these were approved by 
the King. A bill was next passed appointing 
the commanding officers of the different coun- 
ties, and making them responsible to the Par- 
liament instead of the King. This measure 
the monarch resisted. He finally set up his 
standard at ITottingham, August 22, 1642, 
calling upon all his subjects to come to his 
support against the Parliament. Taylor, who 
had been appointed one of the king's chaplains 
about the same time that he had received the 
living of Uppingham, was now summoned 
from its peaceful seclusion to the camp, and 
was one of the first to join the royal forces. 
His recent domestic bereavements probably 
combined with his royalist sympathies in ur« 



4:6 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

ging him to this step. The entries in the parish 
register in his handwriting cease after the sum- 
mer of 1642. As the line of march of the 
royal army from Nottingham to Oxford pass- 
ed near his parish, it is probable that he then 
joined the ranks. The King, after entering 
Oxford, advanced as far as Colnbrook on the 
way to London, but fearful of engaging with 
the large force raised by Parliament to meet 
him returned to the university, where he re- 
sided for some time in Christ Church College. 
On the first of IsTovember in the same year, a 
convocation of the university authorities was 
held, and at the King's request Mr. Taylor re- 
ceived the degree of D. D. from this assembly. 
The honor was however lessened by the in- 
discriminate manner in which this and other 
academic titles were conferred, by royal com- 
mand, on many persons who had taken part in 
recent engagements, or identified themselves 
with the royal cause. Titles of this class were 
now almost the only honors in the King's gift, 
and were so lavishly bestowed as to call forth 
a remonstrance from the university. 

An act, passed on the fifteenth of October 
by Parliament, that the revenues " of such 
notorious delinquents as had taken up arms 



THE PURITAN LECTUKER. 47 

against the Parliament, or had been active in 
the commission of array, should be sequestered 
for the use and service of the Commonwealth," 
now deprived Taylor of all income arising 
from his parish. 'No one, however, appears 
to have been regularly appointed to, or a 
claimant for, the vacant parish, until 1661, the 
year Dr. Taylor became a bishop, when we 
find John AUington signing himself " rector 
there." The parish was, in the mean time, 
supplied ^Yith a Puritan lecturer. A curious 
passage in the Mercurius Aulicus^ one of the 
earliest forerunners of the modern newspaper, 
for the week ending May 2, 1644, presents a 
far from flattering picture of this successor of 
Mr. Taylor. The writer, in the course of his 
remarks on the clergy favored by the Parlia- 
ment, says : 

" Monday, May 6. — Now if you would see 
what heavenly men these lecturers are, be 
pleased to take notice, that at Uppingham, in 
Eutlandshire, the members have placed one 
Isaac Massey to teach the people (for the true 
pastor. Dr. Jeremy Taylor, for his learning and 
loyalty, is driven thence, his house plundered, 
his estate seized, and his family driven out of 
doors). This Massey, at a Communion this 



48 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOK. 

last Easter, having consecrated the bread after 
his manner, laid one hand upon the chalice, 
and smiting his breast with the other, said to 
the parishioners : ' As I am a faithful sinner, 
neighbors, this is my morning draught ;' and 
turning himself round to them, said, ' j^eigh- 
bors, here's to ye all!' and so drank off* the 
whole cupful, which is none of the least. 
Many of the parish were hereby scandalized, 
and therefore departed without receiving the 
Sacrament. Among which, one old man, see- 
ing Massey drink after this manner, said aloud, 
' Sir, much good do it you.' "Whereupon Mas- 
sey replied, 'Thou blessest with thy tongue, 
and cursest with thy heart ; but 'tis no matter, 
for God will bless whom thou cursest.' This 
Massey, coming lately into a house of the 
town, used these words, 'This town of Up- 
pingham loves Popery, and we would reform 
it, but they will not' (and without any fm^ther 
coherence, said) : ' but I say, whoever says 
there is any king in England besides the 
Parliament at Westminster, PU make him 
for ever speaking more.' The master of the 
house replied, ' I say there is a king in Eng- 
land besides the Parliament in Westminster ;' 
whereupon Massey, with his cudgel, broke the 



CARDIGAJSr CASTLE. 49 

gentleman's head. Whoever doubts that Mr. 
Massey is injured by these relations, may sat- 
isfy themselves by inquiring of the inhabitants 
of Uppingham parish." 

The Mercurius Aulicus was issued, and for 
the most part written, by Sir John Birkenhead, 
a leading member of the Eoyalist party. As 
he was acquainted with Dr. Taylor, it is sur- 
mised by Mr. Willmott, to whom we are in- 
debted for this curious extract, that the infor- 
mation may have been supplied by the ejected 
rector. The cool reference to the best wit- 
nesses in the case, the people of the parish, 
at the close of the narrative, shows that the 
writer was prepared to substantiate his testi- 
mony, however obtained, if questioned as that 
of a partisan, by ample proof. 

Dr. Taylor is supposed to have been with 
the royal forces before Gloucester and at ISTew- 
bury. The ill success of these movements 
forced the king to return to Oxford. On the 
fourth of February of the following year. Dr. 
Taylor is mentioned as one of the prisoners 
taken by the parliamentary troops after their 
victory over Colonel Charles Gerard before 
Cardigan Castle. His imprisonment was not 
probably of long duration, as we find him in 

5 



50 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOE. 

the fall of the same year at Oxford. He does 
not appear to have again joined the army. 

The stirring scenes of a campaign must have 
vividly impressed themselves upon his active 
imagination, and traces of this portion of his 
career are, as might naturally be supposed, 
scattered through his writings. Numerous 
passages of this description have been collect- 
ed by Mr. Willmott. The following compan- 
ion pictures are evidently from the life. Often 
as the subjects have been treated, they have 
never been more vividly brought before us by 
pen or pencil. 

The first, in the sermon entitled " The 
Apples of Sodom," is a comparison of the 
sinner roused, after having yielded to tempta- 
tion, to the consequ^ences, which in the ex- 
citement of the act he had forgotten. 

" But so have I known a bold trooper fight 
in the confusion of a battle, and, being warm 
with heat and rage, receive from the sword of 
his enemy wounds open like a grave ; but he 
felt them not; and when, by the streams of 
blood, he found himself marked for pain, he 
refused to consider then what he was to feel 
to-morrow; but when his rage hath cooled 
into the temper of a man, and clammy moist- 



THE SOLDIER IN A BREACH. 51 

Tire hath checked the fiery emission of spirits, 
he wonders at his own boldness, and blames 
his fate, and needs a mighty patience to bear 
his great calamity." 

The second passage occurs in Holy Dying, 
'^ And what can we complain of the weakness 
of onr strengths, or the pressures of diseases, 
when we see a poor soldier stand in a breach, 
almost starved"^* with cold and hunger, and his 
cold apt to be relieved only by the heats of 
anger, a fever, or a fired musket, and his hun- 
ger slacked by a greater pain or a huge fear ? 
This man shall stand in his arms and woimds, 
pale and faint, weary and watchful; and at 
night shall have a bullet pulled out of his 
flesh, and shivers from his bones, and endure 
his mouth to be sewed up from a violent rent 
to its own dimensions." 

^^ Used in its primitive meaning of kilUd, 



CHAPTEE V. 

EPISCOPACY ASSEKTED TOLERATIOX SIE CnRISTOPHER 

HATTON — DUGDALE — THE DIRECTOEY — APOLOGY FOR 
THE LITURGY — THE PSALTER — THE CIVIL WAR — KING 
DAYID — CHURCH UNION — RETIREMENT IN WALES — RE- 
MARRIAGE — NICHOLSON AND WYATT — NEWTON HALL 

POWELL AND LLOYD — GRAMMAR — HATTON THE YOUNG- 
ER — INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES I. — LIBERTY OF PRO- 
PHESYING — TOLERATION — ABRAHAM AND HIS GUEST. 

MK. TAYLOK, soon after joining tlie King 
at Oxford, published a work entitled 
EpisGOj)aGy Asserted against the Acephali and 
Aerians^ New and Old, It was prepared at 
the request of the King, as a defence of the 
views of the Church of England respecting 
Church government. The author derives the 
Episcopal office from that of the Apostles,^ 

'"' He states this in strong terms in his dedication. 
*' Episcopacy relies not upon the authority of fathers and 
councils, but upon Scripture ; upon the institution of 
Christ, or the institution of the Apostles ; upon a universal 
tradition and a universal practice, not upon the words and 
opinions of the doctors : it hath as great a testimony as 
Scripture itself hath." 



CHKISTOPBER HATTOK. 53 

and clearly points out its pre-eminence and 
authority from the earliest ages of the Church. 
It is written in a clear and vigorous style, and 
with the tone of moderation towards those of 
different views which honorably distinguishes 
all his writings. He expressly denies the 
right of coercion in religious belief. " As no 
human power," he says, "can disrobe the 
Church of the power of excommunication, so 
no human power can invest the Church with a 
lay compulsory. For, if the Church be not 
capable of a ^jus gladii^ as most certainly she 
is not, the Church cannot receive power to put 
men to death, or to inflict lesser pains in order 
to it, or any thing above a salutary penance." 
The work is dedicated to Christopher Hat- 
ton, Esq., afterwards Lord Hatton of Kirby, a 
gentleman of worth residing near Uppingham. 
He was a liberal friend of learning, and ren- 
dered an important service to the history of 
his native country by encouraging and aiding 
the celebrated antiquarian, Dugdale, in his 
visits to the most important cathedrals, parish 
churches, and religious establishments of the 
kingdom. Dugdale copied various inscriptions 
and armorial bearings from tombs and win- 
dows during the summer of 1641, and his rec- 

5* 



54 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

ord is in many cases the only one in existence 
of much that was soon after wantonly de- 
stroyed by the Puritans. 

On the first of July, 1643, the Assembly of 
Divines, in whose charge the management of 
ecclesiastical affairs was now placed, issued a 
work entitled A Directory for the Public Wor- 
ship of God throughout the Three Kingdoms 
of England^ Scotland^ and Ireland, It con- 
tains a number of suggestions and directions 
respecting the matter and manner of extem- 
pore prayers. Its use was enforced by an Act 
of Parliament, "for the taking away of the 
Book of Common Prayer, and for establish- 
ing and observing of this present Directory 
throughout the kingdom of England and do- 
minion of Wales." Dr. Taylor met this by 
the preparation of his Apology for Authorized 
and Set Forms of Liturgy^ against the Pretence 
of the Spirit, His work appeared anonymous- 
ly in 1646, with the title, A Discourse con- 
cerning Prayer Extempore^ or hy Pretence of 
the Spirit^ in Justification of Authorized and 
Set Forms of Liturgy. The work reappeared 
in its present enlarged form, and with its pres- 
ent title, in the same year, with a dedication 
to the king. A third edition followed three 



COMPOSITION OF PRAYERS. 55 

years later, in which the author gave a sig- 
nificant proof of his disinterested respect for 
the monarch by retaining the original in- 
scription. 

This work is divided into two portions : the 
first answering the objections of those who 
disapprove of all forms of devotion, the second 
addressed to those who, sensible of some of the 
advantages of a liturgy, object to being bound 
to its use on all occasions of public worship. 
In the preface he has considered the merits of 
the Book of Common Prayer. Dr. Taylor's 
opinion on these topics is the more valuable, 
as the ease and eloquence of his own devo- 
tional writings show that he could have easily 
excelled in extempore prayer, had he deemed 
it fitting to use public devotion as a means of 
personal display. His published sermons close 
in many instances with an original prayer, as 
was then the custom of divines, but the prayer 
was evidently, like the sermon, carefully com- 
posed in advance of the occasion for its use. 

In 164:4:, a volume was published at Oxford 
with the title, The Psalter of David ^ with Ti- 
tles and Colleots according to the matter of 
each Psalm^ hj the Might Honorable Christo- 
pher Hatton. The ^'titles and collects" are 



56 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

from the pen of Dr. Taylor, and tlie work ap- 
peared in the eighth edition, 1672, with his 
name as author. Each collect contains a sum- 
mary of the contents of the psalm which pre- 
cedes it, expressed with the author's wonted 
grace and fervor. No reason is known for the 
substitution of his friend Hatton's name for 
his own on the original title-page. 

The preface contains a passage of interest 
from its personal nature. " In this most un- 
natural war commenced against the greatest 
solemnities of Christianity, and all that is call- 
ed God, I have been j)ut to it to run some- 
whither to sanctuary ; but whither, was so 
great a question, that had not religion been 
my guide, I had not known where to have 
found rest or safety : when the King and the 
laws, who, by God and man respectively, are 
appointed the protectors of innocence and 
truth, had themselves the greatest need of a 
protector. And when, in the beginning of 
these troubles, I hastened to his Majesty, the 
case of the King and his good subjects was 
something like that of Isaac ready to be sacri- 
ficed ; the wood was prepared, the fire kindled, 
the knife was lift up, and the hand was strik- 
ing ; that, if we had not been something like 



i 



CONSOLATIONS. 57 

Abraliam too, and ^ against liope had believed 
in hope,' we had been as mnch withont com- 
fort, as we were, in outward appearance, with- 
out remedy. 

'^ It was my custom long since to secure my- 
self against the violence of discontents abroad, 
— as Gerson did against temptations, — ' in an- 
gulis et lihcllis^ ' in my books and my retire- 
ments ;' but now I was deprived of both them, 
and driven to a public view and participation 
of those dangers and miseries which threatened 
the kingdom, and disturbed the evenness of 
my former life. I was, therefore, constrained 
to amass together all those arguments of hope 
and comfort, by which men in the like condi- 
tion were supported; and amongst all the 
great examples of trouble and confidence, I 
reckoned King David one of the biggest, and 
of greatest consideration. For, considering 
that he was a king vexed with a civil war, his 
case had so much of ours in it, that it was 
likely the devotions he used might fit our turn, 
and his comforts sustain us." 

Another passage shows his chief aim in the 
preparation of the work to have been the pro- 
motion of the noble cause of Catholic union. 
After showing that the recorded devotions of 



58 THE LIFE OF JEKEMY TAYLOK. 

our Saviour and the Apostles, are, almost en- 
tirely, taken from Psalms, he says, ^' I thought 
I might not imprudently intend this book as 
an instrument of public charity to Christians 
of different confessions. For I see that all 
sorts of people sing or say David's Psalms ; 
and by that use, if they understand the conse- 
quences of their own religion, accept set forms 
of prayer for their liturgy, and this form in 
special is one of their own choices for devo- 
tion: so that if all Christians that think Da- 
vid's Psalms lawful devotions, and shall ob- 
serve the collects from them to be just of the 
same religion, would join in this or the like 
form, I am something confident the product 
would be charity, besides other spiritual ad- 
vantages. For my own particular, since all 
Christendom is so much divided and subdivid- 
ed into innumerable sects, I knew not how to 
give a better evidence of my own belief and 
love of the communion of saints, and detesta- 
tion of schism, than by an act of religion, whose 
consequence might be, if men please, the ad- 
vancement of a universal communion." 

The exact date of Dr. Taylor's retirement 
from the army is unknown. All hope of suc- 
cess for the royal arms was now at an end. 



FPJEXDS IN ADVERSITY. 59 

Dr. Taylor, as we have seen, had been taken 
prisoner in Wales. After his release he seems 
to have established himself in that portion of 
the country. A celebrated passage in the 
introduction to The Liberty of Prophesying^ 
evidently refers to this portion of his career, 
and furnishes almost our only information re- 
specting it. 

'^In the great storm," he says, "which 
dashed the vessel of the Church in pieces, I 
was cast on the coast of Wales ; and in a little 
boat, thought to have enjoyed that rest and 
quietness which in England I could not hope 
for. Here I cast anchor ; and thinking to ride 
safely, the storm followed me with so impetu- 
ous a violence, that it broke a cable, and I lost 
my anchor. And here again I was exposed 
to the mercy of the sea, and the gentleness of 
an element that could neither distinguish 
things nor persons. And but that He who 
stilleth the raging of the sea, and the noise of 
his waves, and the madness of his people, had 
provided a plank for me, I had been lost to all 
tlie opportunities of content and study. But I 
know not whether I have been more preserved 
by the courtesies of my friends, or the gentle- 
ness and mercies of a noble enemy." The fol- 



60 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOE. 

lowing passage from the Acts of the Apostles 
follows ill the original Greek. " And the bar- 
barons people showed ns no little kindness, for 
they kindled a fire and received us every one, 
because of the present rain, and because of the 
cold." 

Bishop Heber traces a parallel between this 
passage and the circumstances attending Dr. 
Taylor's capture and imprisonment after the 
engagement at Cardigan Castle. Mr. Will- 
mott, with we think greater propriety, makes 
it refer to the general course of the divine's 
fortunes at this period. He married in Wales, 
Joanna Bridges, said to have been a natural 
daughter of King Charles I., when Prince of 
Wales. Tradition reports the lady to have 
been very beautiful, and the owner of a large 
property in Llangadock, in the northeastern 
part of Caermarthenshire. The estate, Mandin- 
nam, is about two miles from the town. Its 
revenues had been, probably previous to the 
marriage, greatly reduced by the exactions of 
the dominant party, and the unsettled state of 
public aftairs, as we find Dr. Taylor opening a 
school in this rural district as a means of sup- 
port. He placed his school in the village of 
Llanfihangel Aberbythic, and was assisted in 



NEWTOI^ HALL. ' 61 

its care by "William IsTicliolson, who had been 
recently ousted by Parliament from a com- 
fortable living in South Wales, and afterwards 
became Bishop of Gloucester. His other asso- 
ciate, William Wyatt, became a Prebendary 
of Lincoln. They rented ISTewton Hall, a 
house of some importance in the parish, and 
appear to have been successful in their enter- 
prise. Two of their scholars. Judge Powell, 
who took a leading part on the trial of the 
seven Bishops, in the reign of James H., and 
Griflfin Lloyd of Cwmgwilly, were apparently 
proud of having been educated at the estab- 
lishment, as their tombstones bear witness to 
the fact. The school has also left its record in 
A New and Easy Institution of Grammar^ 
a work published in 1647, with a dedicatory 
epistle in Latin, from the Collegium Newton i- 
ense^ to Lord Hatton, and another in English 
from Taylor to Christopher Hatton, the eldest 
son of the nobleman, — a youth at that time of 
fifteen, who afterwards became, under Charles 
the Second, a viscount and governor of the 
island of Guernsey. The book was probably 
prepared by Wyatt, as it bears no trace of the 
more gifted mind of his associate. A pointed 
remark on the necessity of mental occupation 

6 



62 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

for youth, is one of tlie few specimens of Dr. 
Taylor's conversation which have been pre- 
served. " If," he once remarked, " you do not 
choose to fill your boy's head with something, 
believe me, the devil will.""^ 

It was probably about this time that Dr. 
Taylor had his last interview with the mon- 
arch whose adverse fortunes he had so faith- 
fully followed. Charles' chaplains were al- 
lowed free access to his person, in August, 
1647. During Dr. Taylor's visit, at this or a 
later period, he received from the King, as a 
testimony of his regard, his watch, and a few 
pearls and rubies which had ornamented his 
ebony Bible-case. 

In 1647 Dr. Taylor published The Lilerty 
of Prophesying^ one of the most able of his 
many valuable works, and enjoying the high 
honor of having been the first plea in history 
for toleration and liberty respecting differen- 
ces of religious belief. Taking the Apostles' 
Creed as the summary of Christian Doctrine, 
he regards all differences not embraced in its 
few and simple sentences as of less import- 



^' Seward's Anecdotes^ voL ii., p. 45; quoted in Bishop 
Heber's Life of Taylor. 



RELIGIOrS BELIEF. 63 

ance than the prevalence of peace and har- 
mony. 

He then illustrates the difficulties attending 
the formation of a right judgment on many 
matters of scriptural belief, not included in this 
simple and primitive summary, and the ina- 
bility of tradition, of councils, and of the pa- 
pal power to determine authoritatively these 
questions. The solution, if one is needed, must, 
he holds, be sought by the exercise of our rea- 
son. This arbitrator cannot however, any 
more than those already named, claim infalli- 
bility. We are not morally accountat)le, if, af- 
ter having used our best endeavors, we arrive 
at a wrong conclusion ; but we are in decided 
and grievous error, if we attempt to force such 
decision, whether it be right or wrong, upon 
our neighbor. " Let not men" he says, '' be 
hasty, in calling every disliked opinion by the 
name of heresy, and, when they have resolved 
that they will call it so, let them use the erring 
person like a brother, not beat him like a dog, 
nor convince him with a gibbet, or vex him 
out of his understanding and persuasions." 

He then shows, that this tolerant theory is 
in accordance with the practice of the primi- 
tive Church, that it was first used by heretical 



64: THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

sects, during their temporary assumption and 
possession of power ; that even after the usurp- 
ation of the papacy, life was not exacted as 
the penalty for holding or teaching doctrines 
deemed erroneous, until the persecution of the 
Albigenses. 

The civil power is, equally with the ecclesi- 
astical, to extend toleration to diversity of re- 
ligious opinion, provided that the public peace 
be not broken by services of a disorderly or 
immoral nature. The decision, on this point, 
he leaves to the discretion of the magistrate. 
He then* enters into an examination of the doc- 
trines of the Anabaptists and Eoman Cath- 
olics, as the two sects "which are most 
troublesome and most disliked," that " by an 
account made of these, we may make judg- 
ment what may be done towards others, whose 
errors are not apprehended of so great malig- 
nity." After an examination of the doctrines 
of these sects, including an elaborate examina- 
tion of the question of infant baptism, and a 
careful estimate of the extent of these errors, 
he concludes, that the decision of their tolera- 
tion is for the magistrate to determine. " Let 
the prince and the secular power have a care 
the commonwealth be safe ; for whether such 



TOLEEATIOK. 65 

or such a sect of Christians be to be permitted, 
is a question rather political than religious." 

Denominations of Christians, agreeing upon 
topics embraced in the Creed, are, he urges, to 
commune together. The Liberty of Prophe- 
sying concludes with one of its author's most 
beautifully narrated parables. It is not found 
in the original edition, but was added in that 
of 1657. 

" I end with a story which I find in the 
Jews' books. When Abraham sat at his 
tent door, according to his custom, waiting to 
entertain strangers; he espied an old man 
stooping and leaning on his staff, weary with 
age and travel, coming towards him, who was 
an hundred years of age. He received him 
kindly, washed his feet, provided supper, 
caused him to sit down, but observing that 
the old man eat and prayed not, nor begged 
for a blessing on his meat, he asked him why 
he did not worship the God of heav^en : the 
old man told him, that he worshipped the fire 
only, and acknowledged no other God ; at 
which answer, Abraham grew so zealously an- 
gry, that he thrust the old man out of his tent, 
and exposed him to all the evils of the night 
and an unguarded condition. When the old 
6* 



66 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

man was gone, God called to Abraham, and 
asked liim where the stranger was ; he re- 
plied, ' I thrust him away, because he did not 
worship Thee :' God answered him, ' 1 have 
suffered him these hundred years, although he 
dishonored Me, and couldst not thou endure 
him one night, when he gave thee no trouble.' 
Upon this, saith the story, Abraham fetched 
him back again, and gave him hospitable en- 
tertainment, and wise instruction. Go thou 
and do likewise, and thy charity will be re- 
warded by the God of Abraham." 

This story has also been used by Dr. Frank- 
lin, in his '' Parable of Persecution." 



CHAPTEE VI. 

THE SCHOOL — THE EAEL OF CARBEEY — GOLDEN GEOYE — 
GEONGAE HILL — THE COUNTESS OF OAEBEEY — CONTENT- 
MENT — THE LIFE OF CHEIST — THE COUNTESS OF CAE- 
beey's FUNEEAL SEEMON. 

DE. TATLOE'S school probably furnisbed 
but a moderate addition to bis income. 
He was shielded from want, his works now 
probably yielding something to their author. 
He received occasional aid also from a wealthy 
landed proprietor of the neighborhood, Eich- 
ard Vaughan, earl of Carbery. This gentle- 
man had distinguished himself as a soldier in 
the Irish wars, and obtained the Order of the 
Bath for his good conduct. He had been 
during the recent conflict the principal roy- 
alist commander in South Wales, and was 
made in consequence, after the Eestoration, 
Lord Vaughan of Emlyn, lord president of 
Wales, and privy councillor. Though active 
on the King's side, he seems to have had many 
friends among the Parliamentarians, so that 
after the battle of Marston Moor he was able 



68 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

to secure his estates from confiscation. This 
gentleman lived on his estate of Golden Grove 
in the parish in which Dr. Taylor now resided. 
The region, though now deprived to some ex- 
tent of the fine woods which then graced the 
landscape, is still celebrated for its romantic 
beauty. It is watered by the Towy, a stream 
famed in the far back days of King Arthur 
and his knights, as the haunt of Merlin, the 
great enchanter. To the north of Golden 
Grove, a mile and a half distant, stands Dyne- 
vor Castle, the seat of the ancient princes of 
South Wales, surrounded by venerable oaks. 
To the west, three miles ofi", in full view of the 
house, Dryslwyn Castle surmounts a rocky 
eminence, as rugged as its name, and Grongar 
Hill rises on the northwest, a mile and a half 
from the mansion. 

An English poet of some repute, John Dyer, 
has described the scene in pleasing verse. 

"Now I gain the mountain's brow, 
What a landscape lies below ! 
No clouds, no vapors intervene, 
But the gay, the open scene 
Does the face of Nature show, 
In all the hues of heaven's bow ! 
And, swelling to embrace the light. 
Spreads around beyond the sight. 



GOI.DEN GROVE. 69 

. Old castles on the cliifs arise, 
Proudly towering in the skies ! 
Eushing from the woods, the spires 
Seem from hence ascending fires ; 
Half his beams Apollo sheds 
On the yellow mountain-heads ! 
Gilds the fleeces of the flocks ; 
And glitters on the broken rocks ! 
Below me trees unnumber'd rise, 
Beautiful in various dyes : 
The gloomy pine, the poplar blue, 
The yellow beech, the sable yew, 
The slender fir, that taper grows, 
The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs ; 
And beyond, the purple grove, 
Haunt of Phillis and of love ! 

Gaudy as the opening dawn, 
Lies a long and level lawn. 
On which a dark hill, steep and high, 
Holds and charms the wand'ring eye ! 
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood. 
His sides are clothed with waving wood, 
And ancient towers crown his brow. 
That cast an awful look below." 

A genial hospitality imparted a cliarni to 
tlie interior of Golden Grove akin to that im- 
pressed by Nature on its external features. 
The mistress of the mansion was one well 
fitted to dispense its honors. Frances, coun- 
tess of Carbery, was the daughter of Sir John 
Altham, of the county of Hertford. Her kind- 
ness, with that of her husband, to Dr. Taylor, 
has secured her an enduring fame from the 



iU THE LIFE OF JEKEMY TAYLOPw. 

splendid eulogj wliicli the divine bnt a few 
years later pronounced over her grave. 

Under these fostering influences of sympa- 
thy and friendship, of domestic happiness and 
the manifold beauties of Xature, Dr. Taylor's 
mind attained its highest develoj)ment. It 
was during the years passed near Golden 
Grove that he composed and published the 
works which have conferred upon him his 
most wide-spread popularity. It was, doubt- 
less, a season of haj)piness, despite its priva- 
tions. We can fortunately trace his feelings 
through several passages in his writings, which, 
in addition to their autobiogi^aphical interest, 
rank among the most eloquent sentences which 
his pen ever ti'aced. 

^' I am fallen," he says in an early chapter 
of his Hoi?/ Zivi7ig, '' into the hands of publi- 
cans and sequestrators, and they have taken 
all from me ; what now ? Let me look about 
me. They have left me the sun and moon, 
fire and water, a loving wife, and many friends 
to pity me, and some to relieve me ; and I can 
still discourse, and, unless I list, they have not 
taken away my merry countenance, and my 
cheerful spirit, and a good conscience ; they 
have still left me the providence of God, and 



CAUSES OF JOY. Tl 

all the promises of the Gospel; and my reli- 
gion, and my hopes of heaven, and my charity 
to them, too ; and still I sleep and digest, I eat 
and drink, I read and meditate. I can walk 
in my neighbor's pleasant fields, and see the 
variety of natural beauties, and delight in all 
that in which God delights — that is, in virtue 
and wisdom, in the whole creation, and in 
God himself. And he that hath so many 
causes of joy, and so great, is very much in 
love with sorrow and peevishness, who loses 
all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down 
upon his little handful of thorns. Such a per- 
son were fit to bear Nero company in his fu- 
neral sorrow for the loss of one of Poppsea's 
hairs, or help to mourn for Lesbia's sparrow ; 
and because he loved it, he deserves to starve 
in the midst of plenty, and to want comfort 
while he is encircled with blessings." 

Dr. Taylor now published the Apology for 
Authorized and Set Forms of Liturgy against 
the Pretence of the Spirit^ an enlargement of 
a volume already noticed. It was soon fol- 
lowed by The Life of Christy or the Great Ex- 
emplar, This work consists of an amplifica- 
tion of the narratives of the Evangelists, ac- 
companied by reflections upon our Saviour's 



72 THE LIFE OF JEKEMY TAYLOE. 

acts and words, and a number of prayers. He 
has not entered upon any illustration of the 
manners and customs of the time, or into any 
examination of disputed points or passages. 
He has exercised so little of a critical spirit, as 
occasionally to introduce, without comment, 
incidents not found in the New Testament, 
and resting only upon fanciful legend. His 
sole object was to produce, so far as his exu- 
berant fancy would permit, a plain, devotional 
work. " I have chosen," he says in the pref- 
ace, " to serve the purposes of religion by do- 
ing assistance to that part of theology which is 
wholly practical ; that which makes us wiser, 
therefore, because it makes us better." 

The popularity with which this beautiful 
work was at once greeted, a popularity which 
it has ever since retained, may have influenced 
the author in devoting himself, during the 
three years passed near Golden Grove, to 
works of a similar character. His splendid 
eulogy, " A Sermon on the Death of the Ex- 
cellent Lady Carbery," next followed. This 
eloquent discourse was delivered at the funeral 
of the countess, in Llanfihangel Aberbythic 
church. 

We extract a portion of his beautiful tri- 



A EEMALE EELIGION. 73 

bute to one wlio appears to have left as wife, 
mother, and friend, an example of no common 
brilliancy. 

THE COUNTESS OF CAEBERY. 

I have seen a female religion that wbolly 
dwelt upon the face and tongue ; that like a 
wanton and undressed tree spends all its juice 
in suckers and irregular branches, in leaves 
and gum, and after all such goodly outsides, 
you should never eat an apple, or be delighted 
with the beauties or the perfumes of a hopeful 
blossom. But the religion of this excellent 
lady was of another constitution ; it took root 
downward in humility, and brought forth fruit 
upward in the substantial graces of a Chris- 
tian, Ie. charity and justice, in chastity and 
modesty, in fair friendships and sweetness of 
society : she had not very much of the forms 
and outsides of godliness, but she was hugely 
careful for the power of it, for the moral, es- 
sential, and useful parts; such which would 
make her be, not seem to be, religious. 

^ ijc ^ ^ :^ ^ 

In all her religion, in all her actions of re- 
lation towards God, she had a strange even- 
ness and untroubled passage, sliding towards 
7 



74: THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOE. 

her ocean of God and of infinity with a certain 
and silent motion. So have I seen a river, 
deep and smooth, passing with a still foot 
and sober face, and paying to the fiscus^ the 
great exchequer of the sea, the prince of all 
the watery bodies, a tribute large and full: 
and hard by it a little brook skipping and 
making a noise upon its unequal and neighbor 
bottom ; and after all its talking and bragged 
motion, it paid to its common audit no more 
than the revenues of a little cloud, or a con- 
temptible vessel : so have I sometimes com- 
pared the issues of her religion- to the solemni- 
ties and famed outsides of another's piety. It 
dwelt upon her spirit, and was incorporated 
with the periodical work of every day : she 
did not believe that religion was intended to 
minister to fame and reputation, but to pardon 
of sins, to the pleasure of God, and the salva- 
tion of souls. For religion is like the breath 
of heaven ; if it goes abroad into the open air, 
it scatters and dissolves like camphire ; but if 
it enters into a secret hoUowness, into a close 
conveyance, it is strong and mighty, and comes 
forth with vigor and great effect at the other 
end, at the other side of this life, in the days 
of death and judgment. 



\ 



MODESTY AND MEEIT. 75 

The other appendage of her religion, which 
also was a great ornament to all the parts of 
her life, was a rare modesty and hnmility of 
spirit, a confident despising and underyaluing 
of herself. For though she had the greatest 
judgment, and the greatest experience of things 
and persons that I ever yet knew in a person 
of her youth, and sex, and circumstances ; yet, 
as if she knew nothing of it, she had the mean- 
est opinion of herself; and like a fair taper, 
when she shined to all the room, yet round 
about her own station she had cast a shadow 
and a cloud, and she shined to everybody but 
herself. 

H< jK ^ ♦ ^ ^ 

Her recreations were little and seldom, her 
prayers often, her reading much : she was of a 
most noble and charitable soul ; a great lover 
of honorable actions, and as great a despiser of 
base things; hugely loving to oblige others, 
and very unwilling to be in arrear to any upon 
the stock of courtesies and liberality ; so free 
in all acts of favor, that she would not stay to 
hear herself thanked, as being unwilling that 
what good went from her to a needful or an 
obliged person should ever return to her again : 
she was an excellent friend, and hugely dear 



76 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

to very many, especially to tlie best and most 
discerning persons ; to all that conversed with 
her and could understand her great worth and 
sweetness. 

She lived as we all should live, and she died 
as I fain would die. ^ ^* And as now in 
the grave it shall not be inquired concerning 
her, how long she lived, but how well, so to 
us who live after her, to suffer a longer calam- 
ity, it may be some ease to our sorrows, and 
.some guide to our lives, and some security 
to our conditions, to consider that God hath 
brought the piety of a young lady to the early 
rewards of a never-ceasing and never-dying 
eternity of glory : and we also, if we live as 
she did, shall partake of the same glories ; not 
only having the honor of a good name, and a 
dear and honored memory, but the glories of 
these glories, the end of all excellent labors, 
and all prudent counsels, and all holy religion, 
even the salvation of our souls, in that day 
when all the saints, and among them this ex- 
cellent woman, shall be shown to all the world 
to have done more, and more excellent things, 
than we know of, or can describe. 



CHAPTER Vn. 

HOLY LITING AND DYING — DEATH — SUXEISE — SICKNESS 

AND SUBMISSION — SERMONS — JOY IN HEAYEN PRAYER 

— ^MARRIAGE — THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY — PAR- 
■ ENTS.- 

THE Rule and Exercise of Holy Living next 
appeared. It wa& followed by a second 
part, Holy Dying^ in 1651. The two have al- 
ways held a prominent place among works de- 
signed to aid our conduct in life and prepare 
us for death. The first part consists of a series 
of essays on Charity, Justice, and Religion, 
following out these topics through various sub- 
divisions, and accompanying all by brief coun- 
sels and prayers. The second part opens with 
reflections upon the shortness and uncertainty 
of life, passing from these it considers the trials 
and duties incident to sickness and the last 
hours of life. The style is uniformly eloquent 
and impressive. Our extracts are taken from 
the Holy Dying, 

DEATH. 

All the succession of time, all the changes 



78 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

in nature, all tlie varieties of liglit and dark- 
ness, the thousand thousands of accidents in the 
world, and every contingency to every man, 
and to every creature, doth preach our funeral 
sermon, and calls us to look and see how the 
old sexton Time throws up the earth and digs 
#a grave, where we must lay our sins or our 
sorrows, and sow our bodies till they rise again 
in a fair or in an intolerable eternity. 

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

Thus death reigns in all the portions of our 
time. The Autumn with its fruits provides 
disorders for us, and the Winter's cold turns 
them into sharp diseases, and the Spring 
brings flewers to strew our hearse, and the 
Summer gives green turf and brambles to 
bind upon our graves. Calentures and surfeit, 
cold and agues, are the four quarters of the 
year, and all minister to Death ; and you can 
go no whither, but you tread upon a dead 
man's bones. 

The wild fellow in Petronius, that escaped 
upon a broken table from the furies of a ship- 
wreck, as he was sunning himself upon the 
rocky shore, espied a man rolled upon his 
floating bed of waves, ballasted with sand in 
the folds of his garment, and carried by his 



SHIPWRECK. Y9 

civil enemy, the sea, towards the shore to find 
a grave: and it cast him into some sad 
thoughts; that peradventure this man's wife 
in some part of the Continent, safe and warm, 
looks next month for the good man's return ; 
or it may be his son knows nothing of the tem- 
pest ; or his father thinks of that affectionate 
kiss which still is warm upon the good old 
man's cheek ever since he took a kind fare- 
well; and he weeps with joy, to think how 
blessed he shall be when his beloved boy re- 
turns into the circle of his father's arms. 
These are the thoughts of mortals ; this is the 
end and sum of all their designs : a dark night 
and an ill guide, a boisterous sea and a broken 
cable, a hard rock and a rough wind, dashed 
in pieces the fortune of a whole family ; and 
they that shall weep loudest for the accident, 
are not yet entered into the storm and yet 
have suffered shipwreck. Then looking upon 
the carcass, he knew it, and found it to be the 
master of the ship, who the day before cast up 
the accounts of his patrimony and his trade, 
and named the day when he thought to be at 
home : see how the man swims who was so an- 
gry two days since ; his passions are becalmed 
with the storm, his accounts cast up, his cares 



80 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOE. 

at an end, his voyage done, and his gains are 
the strange events of death, which whether 
thej be good or evil, the men that are alive 
seldom trouble themselves concerning the in- 
terests of the dead. 

SUNRISE. 
But as when the sun approaches towards the 
gates of the morning, he first opens a little eye 
of heaven, and sends away the spirits of dark- 
ness, and gives light to a cock, and calls up 
the lark to matins, and by and by gilds the 
fringes of a cloud, and peeps over the east- 
ern hills, thrusting out his golden horns, like 
those which decked the brows of Moses when 
he was forced to wear a veil, because himself 
had seen the face of God ; and still, while a 
man tells the story, the sun gets up higher, till 
he shows a fair face and a full light, and then 
he shines one whole day, under a cloud often, 
and sometimes weeping great and little show- 
ers, and sets quickly : so is a man's reason and 
his life. 

FITNESS. 
ISTo man will hire a general to cut wood, or 
shake hay with a sceptre, or spend his soul 
and all his faculties upon the purchase of a 



8EEM0KS. 81 

cockle-sliell ; but lie will fit instruments to the 
dignity and exigence of the design. 

SICKNESS AND SUBMISSION. 

So have I known the boisterous north wind 
pass through the yielding air, which opened 
its bosom, and appeased its violence by enter- 
taining it with easy compliance in all the re- 
gions of its reception : but when the same 
breath of Heaven hath been checked with the 
stiffness of a tower, or the united strength of a 
wood, it grew mighty, and dwelt there, and 
made the highest branches stoop, and make a 
smooth path for it on the top of all its glories. 
So is sickness and so is the grace of God. 

Dr. Taylor's first collection of published ser- 
mons, twenty-seven in number, for the sum- 
mer half-year, was published in 1651. A sec- 
ond volume, containing twenty-five more, for 
the winter half-year, followed two years after. 
The collection bears the Greek title Eniaittos. 
ITo order, either of adaptation to the ritual 
year, or any series of topics appears in the sub- 
jects. " The special design of the whole," he 
states in the Dedication to the Earl of Carbery, 
'' is to describe the greater lines of duty, by 



82 Tin: LIFE OF JEKEMY TAYLOK. 

special arguments. ^ ^ ^ ]VJ'o man ought 
to be offended that sermons are not like cu- 
rious inquiries after new nothings, but pursu- 
ances of old truths." The Dedication also 
states that the sermons " were first presented 
to God in the ministeries of Lord Carbery's 
family." The congregation, with the addition 
of guests, and of the neighboring country peo- 
ple, but a portion of whom it is to be presum- 
ed, in a Welsh district, understood English, 
could not have been large. The sermons are 
long, several being divided into three and four 
discourses, and are plentifully sprinkled with 
quotations in Greek and Latin. They abound 
in noble bursts of oratory and fine poetical 
imagery. 

We have drawn from the collection of these 
discourses, in as brief limits as justice to our 
object would permit, some of their most char- 
acteristic passages. 

JOY IN HEAVEN. 

Every sinner that repents causes joy to 
Christ, and the joy is so great that it runs over 
and wets the fair brows and beauteous locks of 
cherubim and seraphim, and all the angels 
have a part of that banquet. 

Chrisfs Advent to Judgment. 



THE LAKK RISING. 83 



PRAYER. 

Prayer is the peace of onr spirit, the still- 
ness of our thoughts, the eyenness of recol- 
lection, the seat of meditation, the rest of onr 
cares, and the calm of our tempest ; prayer is 
the issue of a quiet mind, of untroubled 
thoughts, it is the daughter of Charity, and 
the sister of meekness ; and he that prays to 
God with an angry, that is with a troubled 
and discomposed spirit, is like him that retires 
into a battle to meditate, and sets up his closet 
in the out-quarters of an army, and chooses a 
frontier garrison to be wise in. Anger is a 
perfect alienation of the mind from prayer, 
and therefore is contrary to that attention, 
which presents our prayers in a right line to 
God. For so have I seen a lark rising from 
his bed of grass, and soaring upwards, singing 
as he rises, and hopes to get to heaven, and 
climb above the clouds ; but the poor bird 
was beaten back with the loud sighings of an 
eastern wind, and his motion made irregular 
and inconstant, descending more at every 
breath of the tempest, than it could recover by 
the libration and frequent weighing of his 
wings ; till the little creature was forced to sit 



84 THE LIFE OF JERE:Mr TAYLOR. 

down and pant, and stav till the stoiTQ was 
over, and then it made a prosperous flight, and 
did rise and sing as if it had learned music and 
motion from an angel, as he passed sometimes 
through the air about his ministeries here be- 
low. So is the jiraver of a good man : when 
his aflau-s have required business, and his bus- 
iness was matter of discipline, and his dis- 
cipline was to pass upon a sinning person, or 
had a design of charity, his duty met with the 
infiiToities of a man, and anger was its instru- 
ment, and the instrimient became stronger 
than the prime agent, and raised a temj)est 
and overruled the man ; and then his prayer 
was broken, and his thoughts were troubled, 
and his words went ujd towards a cloud, and 
his thoughts pulled them back again, and 
made them without intention ; and the good 
man sighs for his infirmity, but must be con- 
tent to lose the prayer, and he must recover it, 
when his anger is removed, and his spirit is 
becalmed, made even as the brow of Jesus, 
and smooth like the heart of God ; and then it 
ascends to heaven upon the wings of the holy 
dove, and dwells with God, till it returns like 
the useful bee, loaden with a blessing and the 
dew of heaven. ne EtUmi of Prayers. 



THE MAEEIAGE RING. 85 



MARHIAGE. 



Here is the proper scene of piety, and pa- 
tience, of the duty of parents, and the charity 
of relatives ; here kindness is spread abroad, 
and love is united and made firm as a centre. 
Marriage is the nursery of heaven : the virgin 
sends prayers to God, but she carries but one 
soul to him ; but the state of marriage fills up 
the numbers of the elect, and hath in it the 
labor of love, and the delicacies of friendship, 
the blessing of society, and the union of hands 
and hearts; it hath in it less of beauty, but 
more of safety, than the single life ; it hath 
more care but less danger ; it is more merry, 
and more sad ; it is fuller of sorrows, and 
fuller of joys ; it lies under more burdens, but 
is supported by all the strengths of love and 
charity, and those burdens are delightful. 
Marriage is the mother of the world, and pre- 
serves kingdoms, and fills cities, and churches, 
and heaven itself. Celibate, like the fiy in the 
heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweet- 
ness, but sits alone, and is confounded, and 
dies in singularity ; but marriage, like the 
useful bee, builds a house and gathers sweet- 
ness from every flower, and labors, and unites 
8 



86 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

into societies and republics, and sends out col- 
onies, and feeds the world with delicacies, and 
obeys their King, and keeps order, and exer- 
cises many virtues, and promotes the interest 
of mankind, and is that state of good things, 
to which God hath designated the present con- 
stitution of the world. 

'X- -Jf 4f ^ 4(- -Sf -Sf 

Every little thing can blast an infant blos- 
som ; and the breath of the south can shake 
the little rings of the vine, when first they be- 
gin to curl, like the locks of a new weaned 
boy ; but when, by age and consolidation, they 
stiffen into the hardness of a stem, and have, 
by the warm embraces of the sun and the 
kisses of heaven, brought forth their clusters, 
they can endure the storms of the north, 
and the loud voices of a tempest, and yet 
never be broken : so are the early unions 
of an unfixed marriage ; watchful and ob- 
servant, jealous and busy, inquisitive and 
careful, and apt to take alarm at every un- 
kind word. 

The Marriage Eing, 



HOLY PAEENTS. 87 



THE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY. 

They tliat had overcome the world conld 
not strangle Christianity. But so have I seen 
the snn, with a little ray of distant light, chal- 
lenge all the power of darkness ; and, without 
violence and noise climbing np the hill, hath 
made night so to retire, that its memory was 
lost in the joys and sprightfulness of the 
morning. And Christianity, — withont violence 
or armies, without resistance and self-preser- 
vation, withont strength or human eloquence, 
without challenging of privileges or fighting 
against tyranny, without alteration of govern- 
ment and scandal of princes, with its humility 
and meekness, with toleration and patience, 
with obedience and charity, with praying 
and dying, — did insensibly turn the world 
into Christian, and persecution into victory. 
The Faith and Patience of the Saints, 

PARENTS. 

In parents and their children, there is so 
great a society of nature and of manners, of 
blessing and cursing, that an evil parent can- 
not perish in a single death : and holy parents 
never eat their meal of blessing alone, but 



88 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOE. 

they make the room shine like the fire of holy 
sacrifice; and a father's or a mother's piety 
makes all the honse festival, and full of joy, 
from generation to generation. 

The Entail of Curses cut off. 



CHAPTEE YIIL 

THE REAL PEESENOE — DE. WAENEE — GOLDEN GEOYE — 
HYMNS — ADYENT — OHAEITY — STATE OF EELIGION — 
IMPEISONMENT — JOHN EYELYN — UNUM NEOESSAEIUM — 
OEIGINAL SIN — DE. WAENEE — AGAIN IMPEISONED — DIS- 
LIKE TO CONTEOYEESY. 

I]Sr 1654, roused by the trinmpliaiit exulta- 
tions of some Roman Catholic writers over 
the low condition of the Chnrch of England, 
Dr. Taylor again engaged in controversial 
theology, and published the Real Presence and 
Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament^ 
proved against the Doctrine of Transubstan- 
tiation. It was dedicated to Dr. Warner, 
bishop of Rochester, who appears to have 
spared from his scanty means, during the sea- 
son of deprivation, towards the support of the 
author. 

In 1655, Dr. Taylor expanded a brief cate- 
chism, which he had some time before pre- 
pared, into a manual of instruction and devo- 
tion, called, in graceful compliment to his 



90 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOE. 

pleasant shelter. The Golden Grove : this little 
work is divided into Credenda, or what is to 
be believed, including a catechism and expo- 
sition of the Creed ; Agenda, or things to be 
done, a collection of rules for daily, spiritual 
guidance ; Postulanda, or things to be prayed 
for, a paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer, a Lit- 
any, and daily devotions. These are fol- 
lowed by Festival Hymns^ the only poetical 
compositions in the entire range of the au- 
thor's works. The hymns are twenty-two in 
number. They are irregular in versification, 
involved in style, and, after the fashion of 
the time, abound in conceits. The cultivated 
taste of Bishop Heber, however, pronounces 
them, after alluding to these apparent faults, 
" powerful, affecting, and often harmonious :" 
with " passages of which Cowley need not have 
been ashamed ; and some which remind us, 
not disadvantageously, of the corresponding 
productions of Milton." 

We present two of these compositions. 



FESTIVAL HYMNS. 01 



THE SECOND HYMN FOR ADVENT ; 

OB, Christ's coming to Jerusalem in triumph. 

Lord, come away ; 
Why dost thou stay ? 
Thy road is ready ; and thy paths, made straight, 

"With longing expectation wait 
The consecration of thy beauteous feet. 
Eide on triumphantly ; behold, we lay 
Our lusts and proud wills in thy way. 
Hosannah ! welcome to our hearts ; Lord, here 
Thou hast a temple, too, and full as dear 
As that of Sion ; and as fall of sin ; — 
Nothing but thieves and robbers dwell therein. 
Enter, and chase them forth, and cleanse the floor, 
Crucify them, that they may never more 

Profane that holy place, 

Where thou hast chose to set thy face. 
And then if our stiff tongues shall be 
Mute in the praises of thy deity, 

The stones out of the temple wall 

Shall cry aloud and call 
Hosannah ! and thy glorious footsteps greet. Ameji, 

A PRAYER FOR CHARITY. 

Full of mercy, full of love. 

Look upon us from above ; 

Thou, who taught'st the blind man's night 

To entertain a double light, 

Thine and the day's (and that thine, too) ; 

The lame away his crutches threw ; 

The parched crust of leprosy 

Return'd unto its infancy ; 



92 THE LIFE OF JEE'rrMT TAYLOR. 

The dumb amazed was to hear 

His own nnchain'd tongae strike his ear ; 

Thy powerful mercy did even chase 

The deTil from Ids usnrp'd phuse, 

TThere thon thyself shouldst dwell, not he. 

Oh, let thy lore our piittem be ; 

Let thy mercy teach one brother 

To foigiTe and love another; 

That, copying thy mercy here. 

Thy goodness may hereafter rear 

Oor souls imto thy glory, when 

Onr dnst shall oease to tr -^^l:! nen. Amen. 



In the address "T tLe Pious and Deront 
Reader/' the anthor contrasts the condition of 
religion in England nnder EpiscopacT, with 
that of his date of writing, mneh to the disad- 
vantage of the latter. •• The people are,'' he 
says, "fallen nnder the harrows and saws of 
impertinent and ignorant preachers, who think 
all religion is a sermon, and all sermons ought 
to be libels against tmth and old goveri- :^. — 
and exponnd chapters that the meaning may 
never be nnderstood, — and pray, that they 
may be thonght able to talk, bnt not to hold 
their peace, — casting not to obtain any thing 
bnt wealth and victory, power and plunder. 
And the people have reaped the fruits apt to 
grow upon such crabstocks; they grow idle 
and false, hypocrites and careless ; they deny 



JOHN EYELYN. 93 

tliemselYes nothing that is pleasant ; they de- 
spise religion, forget gOYernment, and some 
noYer think of heaYen ; and they that do, 
think to go thither in such paths which all 
the ages of the Church did giYe men warn- 
ing of, lest they should, that way, go to the 
deYil." 

For this, with other like Yigorous free 
speech. Dr. Taylor was imprisoned. His con- 
finement does not appear to haYe been a 
long one. 

On the sixteenth of April, 1654, John Eyc- 
lyn records in his diary that he heard Dr. 
Taylor preach in London. Mr. EYelyn was a 
gentleman of education and fortune who had 
recently returned from an extensiYe foreign 
tour. Although an earnest royalist, his con- 
duct had been so prudent, and his character 
was so respected, that he liYcd unmolested by 
the now dominant party. On the eighteenth 
of March, we find Mr. EYelyn again one of Dr. 
Taylor's congregation ; and, on the thirty-first 
of the same month, Yisiting him ^Ho confer 
with him about some spiritual matters, using 
him thenceforward as his ghostly father." Mr. 
EYelyn continued to be Dr. Taylor's firm friend 
during the troubles of the Commonwealth, and 



9J: THK LIFi: OF JKKEMY TAYLOK. 

the remainder of his career, — often aiding him 
liberally from his private fortune. 

Dr. Taylor's next work, '* Uiium Necessa- 
riura, or the Doctrine and Practice of Ee- 
pentance ; describing the Xecessity and Meas- 
m^es of a Strict, a Holy, and a Christian Life, 
and Eescned from Popular Errors," involved 
him in controversy by his denial, in the course 
of the volume, that mankind were subject to 
condemnation on account of theii* original sin 
derived from Adam. 

It must be admitted that Dr. Tavlor's views 
upon this subject were erroneous. In his anx- 
iety to avoid a belief which he charges upon 
the Calvinists of that day, declaring the con- 
dition of infants dying unbaptized to be hope- 
less, he has fallen into an opposite error in 
asserting that our inheritance from Adam is 
one of temporal evil only. According to his 
theory, a human being now enters the world 
as Adam did, pure and sinless. Our first 
parent, he affirms, had supernatural aids af- 
forded him, by which he maintained his inno- 
cence until his disobedience and fall, when 
these aids were withdrawn, nor have they 
been vouchsafed to his posterity. 

It seems strange that an intellect so power- 



OKiGiisrAL SIN. 95 

ful as Dr. Taylor's did not perceive tliat this 
theory affords no solution to the difficulty. 
The loss of this " supernatural aid" was cer- 
tainly the same in effect to Adam and his 
posterity as his fall from innocence. It is but 
a repetition, in a complicated form, of the 
simple old adage, that 

In Adam's fall 
We sinned all. 

The remainder of the work is in harmony 
with the general tone of his writings, of a 
simple, ]3ractical character, enforcing the ne- 
cessity of repentance, and dwelling with his 
wonted warmth on the beauty of holiness. 
The various chapters close with prayers in 
harmony with their subject-matter, and the 
general tenor of the whole neutralizes any evil 
effects which his speculations might occasion. 
No one ever held more humble views of him- 
self, or of his fellow-men, than Jeremy Taylor. 
No one has more earnestly confessed the need 
of the Atonement, or expressed a more fervent 
gratitude for that greatest of blessings, than 
he has impressed upon his writings. His 
eagerness ''to vindicate the ways of God to 
man," proceeded from his ardent piety ; but 



96 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

like many examj)les of similar eagerness, led 
him beyond the sober limits of reverence and 
common-sense. We are placed in this world 
to struggle with sin, not to discuss its origin. 

The preface to the Doctrine of Repentance 
is addressed to the Bishops of Salisbury and 
Rochester. The prelates could not allow doc- 
trines at variance with those of the Articles of 
the Church to pass unrebuked. Tlie Bishop 
of Rochester, Dr. Warner, addressed a letter 
to the author on the subject. 

It was dated July 28th, but was not received 
until September the 11th. The delay was 
owing to a second imprisonment, which Dr. 
Taylor was now undergoing, in Chepstow 
Castle, in consequence of a royalist insurrec- 
tion at Salisbury, which, although he took no 
part in the affair, rendered him an object of 
suspicion. In his reply to the Bishop he ex- 
plains this delay, adding a passage which 
throws some light upon his condition. "I 
have now,^' he says, " that liberty that I can 
receive any letters, and send any ; for the gen- 
tlemen under whose custody I am, as they are 
careful of their charges, so they are civil to 
my person." A second letter, in which he 
requests the Bishop to revise a Fuvtlier Expli- 



DISLIKE OF COi^TROVERSY. 97 

cation of the Doctrine of Original Sin^ a tract 
prepared by him during his imprisonment, in 
reply to his theological opponents, dated Man- 
dinam, November 17, 1655, shows that his 
confinement was of brief duration. He ex- 
presses the hope that this second treatise may 
so explain the first as to " give satisfaction to 
the Church and to my jealous brethren;" and 
enters into an elaborate examination of the 
Ninth Article, in an endeavor to show that 
his doctrines were not in conflict with its dec- 
larations. The Bishop was unconvinced, and 
refused to revise the tract, which soon after 
appeared in a second edition of the original 
publication. It now forms the seventh chap- 
ter of the work. 

In this letter Dr. Taylor also expresses a de- 
sire to avoid controversy, that he may devote 
his entire attention to a great work upon which 
he was engaged. '^ I am very desirous to be 
permitted quietly to continue my studies," he 
writes, "that I may seasonably publish the 
first three books of my Cases of Conscience^ 
which I am now preparing for the press, 
and by which, as I hope to serve God and 
the Church, so I do design to do some hon- 
or to your lordship, to whose charity and 



98 THE LIFP: of JERKMY TAYLOR. 

nobleness I and my relatives are so mucli 
obliged." 

In a letter dated November 21, lie alludes 
with some natural feeling to tbe reception of 
his TJminb Necessariuin. " I am well pleased 
that you have read over my last book; and 
give God thanks that I have reason to believe^ 
that it is accepted by God, and by some good 
men. As for the censure of unconsenting per- 
sons, I expected it, and hope that themselves 
will be their own reprover, and truth will be 
assisted by God, and shall prevail, when all 
noises and prejudices shall be ashamed. My 
comfort is, that I have the honor to be an ad- 
vocate for God's justice and goodness, and that 
the consequent of my doctrine is, that men 
may speak honor of God, and meanly of them- 
selves. But I have also this last week sent up 
some papers, in which I make it appear that 
the doctrine which I now have published was 
taught by the fathers within the first four hun- 
dred years ; and have vindicated it both from 
novelty and singularity. I have also prepared 
some other papers concerning this question, 
which I once had some thoughts to have pub- 
lished. But what I have already said, and 
now further explicated and justified, I hope 



LOVE OF PEACE. 99 

may be sufficient to satisfy pious and prudent 
persons, who do not love to go qua itur^ but 
qua eundum est^^ 

This letter shows that its writer had devoted 
earnest thought and study to the subject upon 
which he had written, and had convinced him- 
self that he was in the right. It also displays 
his willingness to forbear further discussion, in 
his love for the peace and quiet of the Church. 

*-' Not the way men go, but the way they should go. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

WA^rrS OF CHTECHMXN LETTEES TO iLB. ETEITX — PEESE- 

CmOX TISIT TO LO^'DOX — BRETTF.T.EY. BOYLE, A>'D IVIL- 

EINS 5AT*5 COUET EyjOT3£E>'T OF PEOSPEEITT — MOX- 

SrETE LE FEAXC ^A POOE BISHOP — ME, THTELAXD BES- 

rOEXCK IX LOXDOX — DEATH OF A CHELD SACKED POE- 

TP-T — DIES IP.^ — DO^IE^nC AFFLICTIOX. 

TT^'E :fiiid. from a letter by Dr. Taylor, that 
f f hi- fririid ]^Ii\ Evelyn had nrged him to 
preparr ^ ^ work adapted to the wants of 
Episc«: luring their deprivation of pub- 

lic worship and sacraments, under the stem 
rule of Cromwell. The reply is eminently de- 
vout and jndicions. 

^. • I perceive by your 
hits of pious men are 
L^lvsis: it is an evil 
_ : : hold our peace; 
but now the qnestion is. — wh- shall speak? 
Tet I am highly persuaded, that, to good men 
and wise, a persecution is nothing but the 
changing the circumstances of religicm, and 
the manner of the forms and appendages of di- 



^•Dc-: 


..-, V^-'--, !•- 


.e ^ 


syni;- ' ; :. 


- how 


the 


afleoi^r :^ 


m thi^ 


- .- , - 


time, EL 


id we . 


--^ — 



GOOD OUT OF EVIL. 101 

vine worship. Public or private is all one: 
the first hath the advantage of society, the sec- 
ond of love. There is a warmth and light in 
that, there is a heat and zeal in this ; and if 
every person that can, will but consider con- 
cerning the essentials of religion, and retain 
them severally, and immnre them as well as 
he can with the same or equivalent ceremonies, 
I know no diJfference in the thing, but that he 
shall have the exercise, and, consequently, the 
reward of other graces, for which, if he lives 
and dies in prosperous days, he shall never be 
crowned. But the evils are, that some will be 
tempted to quit their present religion, and 
some to take a worse, and some to take none 
at all. It is a true and sad story ; but oportet 
esse hcereses^ for so they that are faithful shall 
be known ; and I am sure He that hath prom- 
ised to bring good out of evil, and that all 
things shall co-operate to the good of them 
that fear God, will verify it concerning perse- 
cution." 

He replies to an invitation to the metropo- 
lis : " Sir, I know not when I shall be able to 
come to London ; for our being stripped of the 
little relics of our fortune remaining after the 
shipwreck, leaves not cordage nor sails suffl- 
9* 



102 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOK. 

cient to bear me tliither. But I hope to be 
able to commit to tlie press my first books of 
Conscience by Easter time ; and then, if I be 
able to get up, I shall be glad to wait upon 
you ; of whose good I am not more solicitous 
than I am joyful that you so carefully provide 
for it in your best interest." 

Dr. Taylor appears to have been soon after 
in a better financial position than he anticipa- 
ted, as 'we find him visiting London, and on 
the 12th of April dining with Mr. Evelyn at 
his country-seat of Say's Court, near the city. 
The guests were eminent men, Berkeley, 
Boyle, and Wilkins. Berkeley, to whom the 
severe and critical pen of Pope has assigned 
" every virtue under heaven," was then earn- 
ing his claim to the gratitude of both hemi- 
spheres by his eff'orts to obtain the endowment 
of his college in the Bermudas. 

Robert Boyle was one of the most accom- 
plished scholars and devout churchmen of his 
day.*^ 

" Wilkins," says Mr. Willmott, "was a per- 
son of singular ingenuity, and deserves to be re- 
membered as one of the earliest English schol- 

* lAfe of Bishop Ken, 



SCIENCE AND WIT. 103 

ars who endeavored to make science popular 
and practical. His fancy, however, outran 
his judgment. His theory of a passage to the 
moon, provoked the smile of his contempora- 
ries, and subsequently caught the eye of Pope — 

' The head that turns at superlunar things, 
Poised on a tail, may steer on Wilkins' wings.' 

" His retort to the Duchess of Newcastle 
would alone have authorized a claim to 
conversational eminence. ' Where,' inquired 
the rhyming lady, ' am I to find a place to 
bait, if I try the journey to that planet?' 
'Madam,' replied the discoverer, 'of all the 
people in the world, I least expected that ques- 
tion from you, who have built so many castles 
in the air, that you may lie every night in one 
of your own.' "Wilkins appeals to our sympa- 
thy upon stronger ground than his science or 
wit would furnish. Related to Cromwell by a 
marriage with his sister, he employed his in- 
fluence on behalf of persecuted piety and 
learning, and the preservation of the universi- 
ties has been attributed to his energetic remon- 
strances." ^ 

'^ Life of Taylor, p. 154. 



104 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOK. 

Four days later the divine addressed the fol- 
lowing letter of thanks and advice to his enter- 
tainer. It is wise, dignified, and affectionate, 
the solemn duties of the clergyman tempering 
the admiration of the scholar. Mr. Evelyn 
was one of the most celebrated virtuosi of his 
time. He had collected during his long tour 
a variety of interesting objects, and was con- 
stantly adding to their number. 

April 16, 1656. 

'' Honored and dear Sir : 

" I hope your servant brought my apology 
with him, and that I already am pardoned, or 
excused in your thoughts, that I did not return 
an answer yesterday to your friendly letter. 
Sir, I did believe myself so very much bound 
to you for your so kind, so friendly reception 
of me in your Tusculamtm^ that I had some 
little wonder upon me when I saw you making 
excuses that it was no better. Sir, I came to 
see you and your lady, and am highly pleased 
that I did so, and found all your circumstances 
to be a heap and union of blessings. But I 
have not either so great a fancy and opinion 
of the prettiness of your abode, or so low an 
opinion of your prudence and piety, as to 



THE USES OF PEOSPEEITY. 105 

think you can be any ways transported with, 
them. I know the pleasure of them is gone 
off from their height before one month's pos- 
session ; and that strangers, and seldom seers, 
feel the beauty of them more than you who 
dwell with them. I am pleased indeed at the 
order and cleanness of all your outward things ; 
and look upon you not only as a person, by 
way of thankfulness to God for his mercies 
and goodness to you, specially obliged to a 
great measure of piety, but also as one who, 
being freed in great degree from secular cares 
and impediments, can, without excuse and al- 
lay, wholly intend what you so passionately 
desire, the service of God. But, now I am 
considering yours, and enumerating my own 
pleasures, I cannot but add, that, though I 
could not choose but be delighted by seeing 
all about you, yet my delices were really in 
seeing you severe and unconcerned in these 
things, and now in finding your affections 
wholly a stranger to them, and to communi- 
cate with them no portion of your passion but 
such as is necessary to him that uses them or 
receives their ministries." 

A few days after, on the 6th of May, Mr. 
Evelyn records in his diary, bringing " Mon- 



106 THE LIFE OF JERE:\r5r TAYLOR. 

sienr le Franc, a young French Sorbonist"^ to 
converse with Dr. Taylor. On the following 
day he prevailed on the Doctor, who had been 
much pleased with the young man, to present 
him to the Bishop. The candidate was or- 
dained deacon and priest on the same day by 
a jDi'elate whom Mr. Eveljm calls the Bishop 
of Meath. As that see was vacant from the 
death of the last incumbent. Dr. Anthony 
Martin, until after the Restoration, he is 
doubtless in error in respect to the title. He 
mentions that he " paid the fees to his lord- 
rfiip, who was very poor and in great want. 
To that necessity were our clergy reduced !" 

Dr. Taylor remained but a short time in 
London, as we find him, on the 19th of July, 
writing from Wales to his friend Mr. Evelyn. 
The latter appears to have communicated an 
offer from Mr. Edward Thurland to furnish 
him with an asylum in London. Mr., after- 
wards Sir Edward Thurland, and one of the 
barons of the Exchequer, was a celebrated law- 
yer, and author of a work on Prayer, highly 
commended by Mr. Evelyn in a letter to the 



^ A student of tlie celebrated coUege, the Sorbonne, in 
Paris. 



CITY RESIDENCE. 107 

writer, after a perusal of the manuscript. In 
this letter, Dr. Taylor confesses that he looks 
with a student's wistful eye to the metropolis. 
"Truly, sir," he says, "I do continue in my 
desires to settle about London, and am only 
hindered by my res angusta domi / but hope 
in God's goodness that he will create to me 
such advantages as may make it possible ; and . 
when I am there, I shall expect the daily is- 
sues of the Divine Providence to iliake all 
things else well, because I am much persuaded 
that, by my abode in the voisinage of London, 
I may receive advantages of society and books 
to enable me better to serve God and the in- 
terest of souls. I have no other design but it, 
and I hope God will second it with his bless- 
ing. Sir, I desire you to present my thanks 
and service to Mr. Thurland ; his society were 
argument enough to make me desire a dwell- 
ing thereabouts, but his other kindnesses will 
make it possible. I would not be troublesome, 
serviceable I would fain be, useful, and desira- 
ble ; and I will endeavor it, if I come." 

The letter closes with a beautiful passage in 
allusion to a recent domestic bereavement. 

" Dear Sir, I am in some little disorder by 
reason of the death of a little child of mine, a 



108 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOK. 

boy that lately made lis very glad ; but now 
lie rejoices in his little orb, while we think, and 
Bigh, and long to be as safe as he is." 

In another letter he expresses a wish, often 
felt by many friends of the English Church. 
After congratulating his friend Evelyn upon 
his translation of Lucretius, then just publish- 
ed, he continues : " It is a thousand pities but 
our English tongue should be enriched with a 
translation of all the sacred hymns which kre 
respersed in all the rituals and church books. 
I was thinking to have begged of you a trans- 
lation of that well-known hymn, 'Dies irce^ 
dies illa^ solvet seclum in favilla^ which, if it 
were a little changed, would be an excellent 
divine song ; but I am not willing to bring 
trouble to you : only it is a thousand times to 
be lamented that the heaux esprits of England, 
do not think divine things to be worthy sub- 
jects for their poesy and spare hours." 

The " heaux esj[>rits^^ were less in fault than 
the writer charges. Some of the most beauti- 
ful sacred poetry in the English language was 
written by his contemporaries or immediate 
predecessors ; and it was but a few years be- 
fore, that the fine hymn he mentions had been 
translated, with a success not surpassed by 



NEW BEEEAVEMEXTS. 109 

many subsequent efforts, by the poet Crashaw. 
The expression of this desire from the acknowl- 
edged master of poetical imagery and melody 
in devotional prosCj deserves to rank among 
the most interesting and curious coincidences 
in the history of literature, when we remember 
that the composition oi Paradise Lost is sup- 
posed to have been commenced in the same 
year.^ 

Mr. Evelyn seems to have determined to 
follow out his friend's suggestion, as we find 
Dr. Taylor remarking, in a letter dated '^ 9ber. 
1656. I am very desirous to receive the ' dies 
irce^ dies illa^ of your translation ; and if you 
have not yet found it, upon notice of it from 
you, I will transmit a copy of it." 

Dr. Taylor's house was soon again saddened 
by the loss of two of his remaining children by 
his second marriage. His letter, announcing 
the event, has no address, but is supposed from 
its affectionate tone to have been sent to Mr. 
Evelyn. 

" I have passed through a great cloud which 
hath wetted me deeper than the skin. It hath 
pleased God to send the small-pox and fevers 

^ Willmott's Life of Taylor, p. 160. 
10 



110 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

among my children; and I have, since I re- 
ceived your last, buried t^vo sweet, hopeful 
boTS ; and have now but one son left, whom I 
intend, if it jDlease God, to bring up to London 
before Easter, and then I hope to wait upon 
vou, and by your sweet conversation and other 
divertisements, if not to alleviate my sorrow, 
yet, at least, to entertain myself and keep me 
from too intense and actual thinkings of my 
trouble. ^ ^ -k- ^ -v^ ^ 
For myself, I bless God I have observed and 
felt so much mercy in this angry dispensation 
of God, that I am almost transported, I am 
sure, highly pleased, with thinking how in- 
finitely sweet his mercies are, when his judg- 
ments are so gracious. Sir, there are many 
particulars in your letter which I would fain 
have answered ; but, still, my little sadnesses 
intervene, and will yet sufter me to write 
nothing else, but that I beg your prayers, and 
that you will still own me to be, dear and 
honored sir, your very aftectionate friend, and 
hearty servant, 

'^ Jee. Tayloe. 

''Feb. 22, 1656-7." 

It is remarkable that the writer speaks of 
" but one son left," when we know by other 



FAIMILY AFFAIRS. Ill 

evidence that two other sons, by his first wife, 
both lived to manhood. It is probable that 
these now resided with their mother's rela- 
tives, and that Dr. Taylor alluded only to the 
family gathered nnder his own roof. 



CHAPTER X. 

REMOVAL TO LOXDOX DEUS JUSTIFICATr GATJLE AXD 

JEANES — COXTEOTERSY — ME. EYELTN's BEXEYOLEXCE 

DE. TAYLOE's acknowledgment — COLLECTION OF 

WOEKS — TEEATISE OX FEIEXDSHIP — MES. PHILLIPS — 
DE. -SVEDDEEBrEXE — EPISCOPACY IX' LOXDOX' — BISHOP 
PEAE50X — IMPRISOXMEXT — COX'DOLEXCE. 

THE tradition of the neighborlioocl coincides 
Yritli tlie statement of the Oxford biogra- 
pher, Anthonj Wood, that Dr. Taylor left 
Wales in consequence of his domestic bereave- 
ments, and removed to London, Avhere he of- 
ficiated privately for a small congregation of 
Episcopalians. His mind was harassed at this 
period of sorrow by controversy. He had 
published, in 1656, '' Deus Justificatus ; or, A 
Yindication of the Glory of the Divine At- 
tributes, in the Question of Original Sin," ac- 
companied by the '^Explication" already men- 
tioned, dedicated to Bishop Warner. In this 
he reiterated his opinions on the subject of 
original sin. He was called to account for 
these by two Puritan clergymen, John Gaule, 



HEXKY JEANES. 113 

of Staugliton, Hiintingdoiisliire, who published 
a work entitled Sapientia Justificata^ which 
Dr. Taylor never noticed, and Henry Jeanes, 
minister of Chedzoy in Somersetshire. He was 
drawn into a correspondence with the latter, 
through a common friend, and became grad- 
ually so excited as to lose his temper. Mr. 
Jeanes published this correspondence, and af- 
terwards returned to the charge in a treatise, 
published in 1660, to which Dr. Taylor made 
no reply. The adversary conducted his case 
with ability. He had been a contemporary of 
Dr. Taylor at Oxford, where he was celebrated 
for his opposition to the Puritans. In 1641, 
we find him active on the opposite side. He 
maintained throughout, a reputation for learn- 
ing, ability, and moderation to his opponents. 
In his account of the origin of the controversy, 
he pays a high tribute to the abilities of his 
distinguished antagonist. In his " advertise- 
ment to the unprejudiced reader," he speaks 
as follows. 

''One Mr. T. C. [Thomas Cartwright], of 
Bridge water 5 being at my house, brake out into 
extraordinary (that I say not excessive and 
hyperbolical) praises of Dr. Jeremy Taylor. 
I expressed my concurrence with him in great 
10* 



114 THE LIFE OF JEEEMY TAYLOK. 

part, nay, I came nothing beliind him, in the 
just commendations of his admirable wit, great 
parts, quick and elegant pen, his abilities in 
critical learning, and his profound skill in an- 
tiquity." 

We gladly pass from the angry arena of 
controversy, to the calmer and purer atmos- 
phere surrounding friendly intercourse, and 
the interchange of good works. Mr. Evelyn, 
with the fellow-feeling of a scholar, seems to 
have been keenly alive to his friend's pecu- 
niary annoyances. He not only gave liberally 
himself, but called out like assistance from his 
brothers. He wrote on the 9th of May, as fol- 
lows. '^Amono; the rest that are tributaries 
to your worth, I make bold to present you 
with this small token, and though it bears no 
proportion, either with my obligation, or your 
merit, yet I hope you will accej)t it as the pro- 
duct of what I have employed for this pur- 
pose ; and which you shall yearly receive, so 
long as God makes me able, and that it may 
be useful. What I can handsomely do for 
you, by other friends, as occasions present 
themselves, may, I hope, in time supply that 
which I myself would do. In order to which. 
I have alreadv made one of mv brothers sensi- 



GKACEFUL GRATITUDE. 115 

ble of this opportunity, to do God and his 
Chnrch an acceptable service. I think I shall 
prevail as much on the other." 

The delicately worded offer met with a fit- 
ting response from the grateful recipient. 

" HoNOKED AND DEAR SiR : — A straugcr came 
two nights since from yon, with a letter and a 
token ; full of humanity and sweetness that 
was, and this of charity. I know it is more 
blessed to give than to receive ; and as I no 
ways repine at the Providence that forces me 
to receive, so neither can I envy that felicity 
of yours, not only that you can, but that you 
do give ; and as I rejoice in that mercy which 
daily makes decree in heaven for my support 
and comfort, so I do most thankfully adore 
the goodness of God to you, whom he consigns 
to greater glories, by the ministeries of these 
graces. But, sir, what am I, or what can I 
do, or what have I done, that you think I 
have or can oblige you ? Sir, you are too kind 
to me, and oblige me not only beyond my 
merit, but beyond my modesty. I only can 
love you, and honor you, and pray for you : 
and in all this, I cannot say but that I am be- 
hindhand with you, for I have found so great 



116 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOE. 

effluxes of all your worthiness and cliarities, 
that I am a debtor for your prayers, for the 
comfort of your letters, for the charity of your 
hand, and the affections of your heart. Sir, 
though you are beyond the reach of my re- 
turns, and my services are very short of touch- 
ing you, yet if it were possible for me to re- 
ceive any commands, the obeying of which 
might signify my great regards of you, I could 
with some more confidence converse with a 
person so obliging; but I am obliged, and 
ashamed, and unable to say so much as I 
should do to represent myself to be, honored 
and dear sir, your most affectionate and 
obliged friend and servant, 

Jee. Taylor. 

May, 15, 1657. 

In 1657, a collection of several of Dr. Tay- 
lor's works appeared in a folio volume, with 
the title, Sumholon Ethico Polemicon ; or^ a 
Collection of Polemical and Moral Discourses. 
It contained the " Liberty of Prophesying" (to 
which he now added the beautiful parable of 
Abraham, already quoted in these pages), the 
'' Golden Grove," the ''' Apology for authorized 
and set forms of Liturgy," and other treatises 
already in print ; but with these were included. 



THE MATCHLESS OEINDA. 117 

the ^'Treatise on Friendsliip," and ^' Two Letters 
to persons changed in their religion," which 
were now first made perfect. 

The Treatise on Friendship, one of his most 
beautiful productions, is dedicated to Mrs. 
Katherine Phillips. This lady was the wife of 
James Phillips, Esq., of the Priory at Cardigan. 
She was a great favorite with the authors of 
the day, claiming herself membership of the 
guild by a number of occasional poems, which 
were published in a folio volume after her 
death, and was frequently complimented under 
the title of the " Matchless Orinda," a name she 
had assumed in conducting a long correspond- 
ence with a friend. Sir Charles Cotterel. Her 
poetry is smoothly written, but does not take 
any elevated rank. She was a lady of exem- 
plary character and great amiability, qualities 
which, combined with a handsome person and 
easy fortune, will go far in accounting for her 
popularity. 

The dedication to the Matchless Orinda, is not 
the only tribute of a personal character which 
graces this Treatise on Friendship. We find, 
from a postscript addressed to the same lady 
that the work itself was due to the inspiratioi^ 
of the noble virtue it so eloquently commem- 



118 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOE. 

orates, liaving been written for the j)rivate pe- 
rusal of his friends, without any design of pub- 
lication. He alluded to one of these friends, 
his physician. Dr. TTedderbui^ne, with tender 
affection and graceful eulogy. " If you shall 
think fit that these papers pass further than 
your own eye and closet, I desire they may be 
consigned into the hands of my worthy friend. 
Dr. Wedderbume ; for I do not only expose 
all my sickness to his cure, but I submit my 
weaknesses to his censure, being as confident 
to find of him charity for what is pardonable, 
as remedy for what is curable : but, indeed, 
madam, I look upon that worthy man as an 
idea of friendship, and if I had no other no- 
tices of friendship or conversation, to instruct 
me than his, it were sufficient ; for whatsoever 
I can say of friendship, I can say of his, and as 
all that know him, reckon him among the 
best physicians, so I know him worthy to be 
reckoned among the best friends." 

Dr. Wedderburne was one of the physi- 
cians in ordinary to Charles the First. He 
was originally a professor of philosophy at St. 
Andrew's, afterwards travelled, and, says An- 
thony Wood, ^' became so celebrated for his 
great skill in physic, that lie was the chief man 



DR. WEDDEEBURNE. 119 

of this country for many years for that faculty. 
Afterwards he received the honor of knight- 
hood, and was highly valued when he was in 
Holland with the Prince in 1646-7. At length, 
though his infirmities and great age forced 
him to retire from public practice and busi- 
ness, yet his fame contracts ^ all the Scotch 
nation to him, and his noble hospitality, and 
kindness to all that were learned and virtuous, 
made his conversation no less loved than his 
advice was desired." f 

It is difficult to decide whether Dr. Taylor 
was at this time permanently residing in, or 
only a frequent visitor to the metropolis. 
Anthony Wood states that he left Wales and 
took charge of a small congregation in Lon- 
don. The use of the Liturgy had been forbid- 
den by law some years previously, but a Puri- 
tan regulation, established in 1611, whereby 
every parish was authorized to found and 
maintain a lecture, was now turned to the ser-. 
vice of the Church it was designed to molest, 
as several congregations, deprived of their 



'••- A curious example of the use of the word in the sense of 
' draws together.' ' 
f Bishop Heber's Life of Taylor. 



120 THE LIFE OF JEEEMY l^YLOR. 

lawful rectors, employed lecturers known to 
belong to the episcopal and monarchical party. 
The jurisdiction of the Triers, the celebrated 
functionaries to whom the examination of 
church affairs was committed, being limited to 
parishes supported by tithes, they could not 
touch the lecturers who depended upon what 
is now known as the voluntary system. A 
few clergymen of the Church thus continued 
to preach during the period of the Com- 
monwealth: one of the number was Bishop 
Pearson, of Chester, who delivered his celebra- 
ted lectures on the Creed, in St. Clement's, 
Eastcheap, in 1659. If Dr. Taylor did not ac- 
cept any ministerial charge, we have evidence, 
in the diary of Mr. Evelyn, that he once, at 
least, officiated in London at this period. 

We next hear of Dr. Taylor as again a pris- 
oner. His publisher, Eoyston, had prefixed to 
his " Collection of Offices," an engraving of 
pur Saviour, kneeling. All representations of 
sacred objects were at this time condemned as 
popish. This superstitious dread of supersti- 
tion had caused great losses to the nation, by 
the destruction of painted windows, and stat- 
ues in the churches, the dispersion of the late 
King's picture-gallery and other collections. 



THE STRANGELY HOPEFUL BOY. 121 

The engraving was probably only taken notice 
of as a means of annoyance^ Mr. Evelyn ex- 
pressly stating, in his diary, that the prosecution 
was owing to the printer having offended the 
Lieutenant of the Tower. Through the influ- 
ence of Dr. Taylor's ever-constant friend with 
this functionary, to whose charge the divine 
had been committed, the printer having escaped 
arrest, the prisoner was soon set at liberty. 

We have read Dr. Taylor's letter to Mr. Ev- 
elyn, in which he "opened his grief" on the 
the loss of his sons. It was now his province 
to comfort the same friend under a similar be- 
reavement. He writes to him from his prison : 

Dear Sir : — 

If dividing and sharing griefs were like the 
cutting of rivers, I dare say to you, you would 
find your stream much abated ; for I account 
myself to have a great cause of sorrow, not 
only in the diminution of your joys and 
hopes, but in the loss of that pretty person, 
your strangely hopeful boy. I cannot tell all 
my own sorrows without adding to yours; 
and the causes of my real sadness in your loss 
are so just, and so reasonable, that I can no 
otherwise comfort you, but by telling you, 

11 



122 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

that you liave very great cause to mourn. So 
certain it is that grief does propagate as fire 
does. You have enkindled my funeral torch, 
and by joining mine to yours, I do but in- 
crease the flame. ' Hoc me male nrit^ is the 
best signification of my apprehension of your 
sad story. But, sir, I cannot choose, but I 
must hold another, and a brighter fiame to 
you : it is already burning in your heart ; and 
if I can but remove the dark side of the lan- 
tern, you have enough within you to warm 
yourself and to shine to others. Remember, 
sir, your two boys are two bright stars, and 
their innocence is secured, and you shall never 
hear evil of them again. Their state is safe, 
and heaven is given to them upon very easy 
terms; nothing but to be born and die. It 
will cost you more trouble to get where they 
are ; and among other things, one of the hard- 
nesses will be, that you must overcome even 
this just and reasonable grief; and, indeed, 
though the grief hath but too reasonable a 
cause, yet it is much more reasonable that 
you master it. For besides that they are 
no losers, but you are the person that com- 
plains, do but consider what you would have 
sufi'ered for their interest : you would have 



i 



LOSS OF CHILDREN. 123 

suffered them to go from you, to be great prin- 
ces in a strange country, and if you can be 
content to suffer your own inconvenience for 
tlieir interest, you command [commend] your 
worthiest love, and tlie question of mourning 
is at an end. But you liave said, and done 
well, when you look upon it as a rod of God ; 
and lie that so smites here, will spare here- 
after : and if you, by patience and submission, 
imprint the discipline upon your own flesh, 
you kill the cause, and make the effect very 
tolerable ; because it is, in some sense, chosen, 
and, therefore, in no sense insufferable. Sir, if 
you do not look to it, time will snatch your 
honor from you, and reproach you for not ef- 
fecting that by Christian philosophy, which 
time will do alone. And if you consider, that 
of the bravest men in the world we find the 
seldomest stories of their children, and the 
Apostles had none, and thousands of the wor- 
thiest persons, that sound most in story, died 
childless, you will find it is a rare act of Prov- 
idence, so to impose upon worthy men a neces- 
sity of perpetuating their names by worthy 
actions and discourses, governments, and rea- 
sonings. If the breach be never repaired, it is 
because God does not see it fit to be ; and if 



124: THE LIFE OF JEKEMY TAYLOR. 

you will be of this mind, it will be much tlie 
better. But, sir, you will pardon my zeal and 
passion for your comfort : I will readily con- 
fess that you have no need of any discourse 
from me to comfort you. Sir, now you have 
an opportunity of serving God by passive 
graces ; strive to be an example and a comfort 
to your lady, and by your wise counsel and 
comfort, stand in the breaches of your own 
family, and make it appear that you are more 
to her than ten sons. Sir, by the assistance of 
Almighty God, I purpose to wait on you some 
time next week, that I may be a witness of your 
Christian courage and bravery, and that I may 
see that God never displeases you, as long as 
the main stake is preserved — I mean your 
hopes and confidences of heaven. Sir, I shall 
pray for all that you can want — that is, some 
degrees of comfort, and a present mind ; and 
shall always do you honor, and fain also would 
do you service, if it were in the power, as it is 
in the afi'ections and desires of 

Dear Sir, your most aff*ectionate and 
obliged friend and servant, 

Jek. Taylok. 
Fd). 17, 1657-8. 



DR. TAYLOR PKEACrilNG. 126 

An entry in Mr. Evelyn's diary, eight days 
later, shows Dr. Taylor happily at liberty to 
keep his promise. — " Feb. 25. Came Dr. Jer- 
emy Taylor and my brothers, with other 
friends, to visit and condole with us." 

We find a little further on in the same rec- 
ord, that on the Yth of March, Mr. Evelyn 
went to London " to hear Dr. Taylor in a pri- 
vate house on Lnke xiii. 23, 24. After the 
sermon followed the blessed communion, of 
which I participated. In the afternoon Dr. 
Gunning, of Excester House, expounding part 
of the Creed." 

11* 



CHAPTER XI. 

"LECTUEESniP LETTERS TO ME. ETELYN EELIGIOX 

INTEREST DR. PETTY LORD COXTVAY — PORTMORE — 

LOUGHS XEAGH AND BAG — RAM ISLAND — LITERARY 
XETVS — TAXDY — ACKXO^LEDGMEXTS TO MR. EYELYX. 

,4 X ofter seems to have been made soon after 
j-JL this, through Mr. Evelyn, by Edward, earl 
of Conway, to Dr. Taylor, of a lectureship in 
the yicinity of Lisburn, Ireland. It is alluded 
to in the following letter, which possesses an 
interest from its picture of parochial affaii's 
under the Commonwealth. 

To JoHX EvELYx, Esquire. 

May 12, 1658. 

HoxoRED Sir : — I return you many thanks 
for yom- care of my temporal affairs : I wish I 
may be able to give you as good account of 
my watchfulness for your seryice, as you have 
of your diligence to do me benefit. But con- 
cerning the thing itself, I am to give you this 
account. I like not the condition of being a 
lecturer under the dispose of another, nor to 



OBJECTIONS TO A LECTUEESHIP. 127 

serve in my s-emicirclc, where a Presbyterian 
and myself shall be like Castor and Polkix, 
the one up and the other down ; which, me- 
thinks, is like the worshipping the snn, and 
making him the deity, that we may be re- 
ligious half the year, and every night serve 
another interest. Sir, the stipend is so incon- 
siderable, it will not pay the charge and trou- 
ble of removing myself and family. It is 
wholly arbitrary; for the triers may over- 
throw it ; or the vicar may forbid it ; or the 
subscribers may die, or grow weary, or poor, 
or be absent. I beseech you, sir, pay my 
thanks to your friend, who had so much kind- 
ness for me as to intend my benefit : I think 
myself no less obliged to him and you than if 
I had accepted it." 

"We add the conclusion of this letter, though 
fragmentary, for its sound counsel to his friend 
concerning his spiritual and temporal interests. 
It may appear at first sight that these are in- 
congruously joined, but we are to remember 
the harassing efi'ect of pecuniary difiiculties 
upon the mind, and the great evils inflicted 
upon others by carelessness or irregularity in 
the discharge of obligations. Dr. Taylor had 



128 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

for many years felt in his own experience the 
weight of these cares. 

" Sir," he continues, " I am well pleased with 
the pious meditations and the extracts of a re- 
ligious spirit which I read in your excellent 
letter. I can say nothing at present but this : 
that I hope in a short progression you will be 
wholly immerged in the delices and joys of re- 
ligion ; and as I perceive your relish and gust 
of the things of the world goes off continually, 
so you will be invested with new capacities, 
and entertained with new appetites; I say 
wdth new appetites, for in religion every new 
degree of love is a new appetite; as in the 
schools we say, every single angel does make 
a species, and differs more than numerically 
from an angel of the same order. 

" Tour question concerning interest hath in it 
no difficulty as you have prudently stated it. 
For in the case, you have only made your- 
self a merchant with them ; only you take less, 
that you be secured ; as you pay a fine to the 
Assurance Office. I am only to add this. 
You are neither directly nor collaterally to en- 
gage the debtor to pay more than is allowed 
by law. It is necessary that you employ your 
money some way for the advantage of your 



ETHICS OF INTEREST. 129 

family. Ton may lawfully buy land, or traf- 
fic, or excliange it to your profit. You may 
do this by yourself or by anotlier, and you 
may as well get something as lie get more, 
and that as well by money, as by land or 
goods; for one is as valuable in tbe esti- 
mation of merchants and of all the world as 
any thing else can be: and, methinks, no man 
should deny money to be valuable, that re- 
members every man parts with what he hath 
for money ; and as lands are of a price when 
they are sold forever, and when they are part- 
ed with for a year, so is money ; since the em- 
ployment of it is as apt to minister to gain as 
lands are to rent. Money and lands are equal- 
ly the matter of increase ; to both of them our 
industry must be applied, or else the profit 
will cease: now as a tenant of lands may 
plough for me, so a tenant of money may go 
to sea and traffic for me." 

It is not certain whether Dr. Taylor's objec- 
tions were overcome and he accepted this lec- 
tureship, or that a new proposal was made. 
In either case the additional inducement was 
off*ered of a permanent provision for his fami- 
ly. Dr., afterwards Sir Yfilliam Petty, who 
had recently made a survey of the island by 



130 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

order of the govemment, and had thus become 
intimately acquainted with the value of the 
forfeited estates, offered to purchase lands of 
this description for him at very low rates. 
This, added to introductions to persons of high 
authority, and the continued solicitations of 
Lord Conway, who promised him " many inti- 
mate kindnesses," led him to accept. Lord 
Conway was influenced not only by regard for 
Dr. Taylor, but by a laudable desire to improve 
the people who occupied his estates. " I 
thank God," he earnestly expresses himself to 
a relative. Major Eawdon, ''I went upon a 
principle not to be repented of, for I had no 
interest or passion in what I did for him, but 
rather some reluctancy. What I pursued was, 
to do an act of piety towards all such as are 
truly disposed to virtue in those parts, for I 
am certain he is the choicest person in England 
appertaining to the conscience." 

Dr. Taylors decision was soon made, for in 
June we find him leaving London, provided 
with the promised introductions and a pass 
signed and sealed by the Lord Protector, for 
Antrim county, Ireland. His residence is sup- 
posed to have been near that of Lord Conway 
at Portmore. From this place he visited Lis- 



PORTMORE. 131 

burn, eiglit miles distant, now an important 
town, but then only a small village, as tbe du- 
ties of liis lecturesliip called liim. The mansion 
of Portmore, built not many years previously, 
after the designs of the celebrated architect Ini- 
go Jones, in a style of great extent and splen- 
dor, stood in a beautiful park adorned by the 
waters of Lough Neagh, and the smaller Lough 
Bag, or Little Lake. It is a tradition of the 
neighborhood that the great divine often visit- 
ed several of the beautiful little islands which 
adorn both of these sheets of water. Ram Isl- 
and, which contains the ruins of a monastery 
and one of the round towers peculiar to the 
country, and which add much to the pictur- 
esqueness of many of its celebrated localities, 
is said to have been one of his especial favor- 
ites. Another was a smaller nook in the 
smaller lake. Both were within a mile from 
Portmore, and therefore at a convenient dis- 
tance. A visitor some score of years since to 
the Lough, found upon one of its small islands 
the remains of a summer-house, in which Dr. 
Taylor is said to have frequently composed.'^ 
In this pleasant retreat Dr. Taylor complet- 

^> WiUmott's Life of Jeremy Taylor, p. 182. 



132 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

ed his great work on Cases of Oonscience. " I 
have kept close all the winter," he writes to 
Mr. Evelyn, '' that I might without interruption 
attend to the finishing of the employment I 
was engaged in." His retirement and occupa- 
tion are far from lessening his interest in the 
literary movement of the time. " Sir," he 
continues, " I pray, say to me something con- 
cerning the state of learning ; how is any art 
and science likely to improve? what good 
books are lately public ? what learned men, 
abroad or at home, begin anew to fill the 
mouth of fame, in the place of the dead Sal- 
masius, Vossius, Mocelin, Sirmond, Eigaltius, 
Descartes, Galileo, Peiresk, Petavius, and the 
excellent persons of yesterday ?" 

This, like all his other letters from this place, 
breathes an air of contentment. He fully ap- 
preciated the natural beauties of this, as of his 
former retreat, addressing a friend, ex ammnis- 
shno recessu^ from my most pleasant recess, in 
Portmore. He was not entirely free from an- 
noyance, a petty fellow, named Tandy, an agent 
of various large estates in the neighborhood, 
having denounced him to the Irish Privy 
Council as disaff*ected. An allusion to the af- 
fair occurs in a letter to Evelyn, dated, June 



TROUBLE WITH TANDY. 133 

4, 1659. " I fear my peace in Ireland is likely 
to be sliort ; for a Presbyterian and a madman 
liaye informed against me as a dangerous man 
to their religion ; and for using tbe sign of the 
cross in baptism." In consequence of tMs 
charge Dr. Taylor was summoned to appear 
before the Irish Privy Council during the win- 
ter. His friend. Lord Conway, was much an- 
noyed at Tandy's conduct. He took the mat- 
ter up as his own personal affair, writing to a 
friend, "I hope, therefore, when you come 
over you will take him, Tandy, off from persecu- 
ting me, since none know better than yourself 
whether I deserve the same at his hands." 
" The quarrel is, it seems, because he thinks 
Dr. Taylor more welcome to Hillsborough 
than himself." The nobleman's influence, com- 
bined with that of others, was, probably, suffi- 
cient to procure Dr. Taylor's immediate dis- 
charge. His journey at an inclement season, 
had also brought on a severe illness, furnish- 
ing, as Bishop Heber suggests, an additional 
inducement for lenity. 

It appears from another portion of this let- 
ter that Mr. Evelyn's bounty was still con- 
tinued : " Sir, I do account myself extremely 
obliged to your kindness and charity, in your 

12 



134 



TIIK LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 



contiimed care of me and bounty to me ; it is 
so miicli the more, because I have almost from 
all men but yourself, suffered some diminu- 
tion of their kindness, by reason of my ab- 
sence, for, as the Spaniard says, 'The dead 
and the absent have but few friends.' But, 
sir, I account myself infinitely obliged to you, 
much for your pension, but exceedingly much 
more for your afi'ection, which you have so 
signally expressed. I pray, sir, be pleased to 
present my humble service to your two hon- 
oured brothers : I shall be ashamed to make 
any address, or pay my thanks in words to 
them, till my Rule of Conscience be public, 
and that is all the way I have to pay my 
debts ; that and my prayers that God would. 

" Sir, I fear I have tired you with an imperti- 
nent letter, but I have felt your charity to be 
so great as to do much more than to pardon 
the excess of my affections. Sir, I hope that 
you and I remember one another when we are 
upon our knees." 

Another letter to Mr. Evelyn, written not 
long after the death of Cromwell, presents a 
beautiful picture of devotion and friendship. 
"I long, sir, to come to converse with you; 



EETIEEMENT. 135 

for I promise to myself that I may receive 
from you an excellent account of your pro- 
gression in religion, and that you are entered 
unto the experimental and secret way of it, 
which is that state of excellency whither good 
persons use to arrive after a state of repent- 
ance and caution. My retirement, in this sol- 
itary place hath been I hope of some advantage 
to me as to this state of religion, in which I am 
yet but a novice, but by the goodness of God, 
I see fine things before me whither I am con- 
tending. It is a great, but a good work, and 
I beg of you to assist me with your prayers, 
and to obtain of God for me that I may ar- 
rive to that height of love and union with 
God, which is given to all those souls who are 
very dear to God. 



CHAPTEE Xn. 

THE DUCTOPw DUBITAXTirM — DEATH OF CEOMWELL — THE 
DECLAEATIOX — DEDICATIOX — WORKS OX CASriSTEY — 

COXSCIEXCE AXCIEXT CABIXET FEIAE CLEMEXT THE 

JEWISH LAW SAXCTITY OF CHrECHES JUSTICE AXD 

PIETY — EAX'DOM SHOTS — SCEUPLES LIMITED OBLIGA- 

TIOX'S. 

I]S" the following spring of 1660, Dr. Tay- 
lor visited London to superintend the pulo- 
lication of his Ductor Dubitantium, It was 
a fortunate journey for him, although from his 
allusion to public aftairs in the letter just 
quoted from, he had evidently no expectation 
of the near triumph of the royalist party. He 
says, Xov. 3, 1659, '* I must needs beg the fa- 
vor of you that I may receive from you an ac- 
count of your health and present conditions, 
and of your family ; for I fear concerning all 
my friends, but especially for those few very 
choice ones I have, lest the present troubles 
may have done them any violence in their af 
fairs or content. It is now lono; since that 
cloud passed ; and though I suppose the sky 



THE DECLARATION. 137 

is yet full of meteors and evil prognosti'cs, yet 
you all have time to consider concerning 
your peace and your securities. That was not 
God's time to relieve his Church, and I cannot 
understand from what quarter that wind blew, 
and whether it was for us or against us. But 
God disposes all things wisely; and religion 
can receive no detriment or diminution but 
by our own fault." The allusion is of course to 
the death of the Lord Protector, Cromwell, in 
September, 1659. Richard Cromwell had, in 
the mean time, abdicated ; the supreme power 
passed to the army, whose leaders had been in- 
duced by their associate. General Monk, to de- 
clare for Charles the Second. 

Shortly before the landing of the king, a 
number of the leading members of the royal- 
ist party united in a " Declaration," designed 
to allay apprehension and promote quiet. As 
Dr. Taylor's name appears among those of its 
signers, we quote a portion as an expression of 
his views respecting this great political change. 
After thanking General Monk for his services, 
the paper continues as follows : " And because 
the enemies of the public peace have endeav- 
ored to represent those of the king's party, as 
men implacable, and such as would sacrifice 
12* 



138 THE LIFE OF JERE:MY TAYLOE. 

the common good to their own private pas- 
sions, we do sincerely profess, that we do re- 
flect upon oni' past snfterings from the hands 
of God, and, therefore, do not cherish any vio- 
lent thoughts or inclinations, to have been any 
way instrumental in them. And if the indis- 
cretion of any spirited"^ persons transport them 
to expressions contrary to this our sense, we 
utterly disclaim them ; and desire that the 
imjDutation may extend no further than the 
folly of the oftenders. And we further declare, 
that we intend, by our quiet and peaceable be- 
havior, to testify our submission to the present 
power, as it now resides in the Council of 
State, in expectation of the future Parliament, 
upon whose wisdom and determinations, we 
trust God will give such a blessing, as may 
produce a perfect settlement both in Chm'ch 
and State." 

Dr. Taylor had soon after the gi-atification 
of dedicatins: the elaborate work, which he re- 
garded as his masterpiece, to the monarch to 
whose cause he had so faithfully adhered. 
The Dudor DiLhitantturii appeared in June, 
1660. 

* A curious use of the word as the equivalent of histy^ in- 
considerate. 



CASES OF CONSCIENCE. 139 

This is by far the longest of Dr. Taylor's works. 
It is the one, as we have seen by frequent ref- 
erences in his letters, on which he was proba- 
bly most willing his reputation should rest. 

Under the old Roman Catholic system of 
the confessional, it became necessary to estab- 
lish certain rules of guidance, for counsel and 
reproof, for those into whose ears the varied 
story of human doubt and frailty was constant- 
ly poured, and the most celebrated writers of 
the middle ages produced huge folios to supply 
this want. Casuistry became in their able 
hands a science. This necessity does not exist 
in our Protestant Church, and works of this 
kind must, therefore, possess a less practical val- 
ue than they hold under a system which estab- 
lishes a penitential or pecuniary tariff for sins. 
Every man's conscience must, to a very great 
extent, be left to establish its own rule. The 
" mind diseased," Shakespeare tells us, " must 
minister to itself." Although we can accept no 
iminspired book as an authoritative guide to a 
doubting conscience, we must be careful not to 
undervalue the aid which may be afforded by 
judicious advice. Our Church, though she 
has wisely banished the confessional, invites 
those who cannot quiet their consciences, to 



140 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOE. 

"come to the minister of God's word and 
open their grief." It is in the spirit of this 
invitation that Dr. Taylor has written. His 
work opens with a consideration of Conscience 
and the difl&cnlties into which its errors, its 
debates, its doubts, and scruples lead it. He 
then passes to the Law of ITature, which he 
exhibits in its general applications, and as 
" commanded, digested, and perfected by our 
Supreme Lawgiver, Jesus Christ." Human 
laws are next discussed in their relations to 
the Church, the State, and the family. The 
fourth and last book treats of the nature and 
causes of good and evil. 

It is plainly beyond our present limits to en- 
ter into any analysis of this remarkable work, 
It is, for the most part, closely argued, afford- 
ing fewer passages than in Dr. Taylor's other 
writings of eloquent amplification. Many of 
his counsels on the details of every-day action 
are shrewd and practical, but many other 
doubtful points seem raised by the ingenuity 
of the student of books, rather than of men. 
The work overflows with curious learning. 
Authors of all ages and ranks are cited, and 
illustrations, often of a very strange character, 
introduced to enforce the writer's positions. 



THE OLD CABINET. 141 

Bishop Heber concludes a long and careful 
examination of the Ductor Dubitantium^ with 
a comparison most happily illustrating the pe- 
culiarities to which we have alluded. ''It re- 
sembles," he says, '' in some degree, those an- 
cient inlaid cabinets (such as Evelyn, Boyle, 
or Wilkins, might have bequeathed to their 
descendants), whose multifarious contents per- 
plex our choice, and offer, to the imagination 
or curiosity of a more accurate age, a vast 
wilderness of trifles and varieties, with no ar- 
rangement at all, or an arrangement on obso- 
lete * principles ; but whose ebony drawers and 
perfumed recesses contain specimens of every 
thing that is precious, or uncommon, and many 
things for which a modern museum might be 
searched in vain." 

We cannot better convey an idea to our 
readers of these peculiarities, than by opening 
a few of these " ebony drawers and perfumed 
recesses." Our extracts will serve our bio- 
graphical purpose, by exhibiting the peculiari- 
ties of the author's mind quite as faithfully, 
perhaps, as some of his more elaborate pas- 



142 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 



FRIAR CLEMENT AND POOR DEMOISELLE 
FAUCETTE. 

Friar Clement, the Jacobin, thinks, errone- 
ously, that it is lawful to kill his king; the 
poor Demoiselle Faucette thinks it unlawful 
to spit in the church : but it haj)pened that, 
one day, she did it against her conscience ; 
and the Friar, with his conscience and a long 
knife, killed the king. If the question be 
here, — who sinned most ? the disparity is next 
to infinite ; and the poor woman was to be chid- 
den for doing against her conscience, and the 
other to be hanged for doing according to his. 

Book I, Chap. Ill, Rule IV. 
THE JEWISH LAW. 

The law that was wholly ceremonial and 
circumstantial, must needs pass away ; and 
when they have lost their priesthood, they can- 
not retain the law ; as no man takes care to 
have his beard shaved, when his head is ofi". 

Book I, Chap. IV, Rule II. 
SANCTITY OF CHURCHES. 

Some think churches not to be more sacred 
than other places : what degree of probability 
soever this can have, yet it is a huge degree 



THE CASTILIAN GENTLEMAIS-. 143 

of folly to act this opinion, and to choose a 
barn to pray in, when a chnrch may be had. 

Book I, Chap. lY, Eule III. 

JUSTICE AND PIETY. 

Justice is like a knife, and hath a back and 
an edge, and there is a letter and a spirit in 
all laws, and justice itself is to be conducted 
with piety. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

As prudence sometimes must be called to 
counsel in the conduct of piety, so must piety 
oftentimes lead in justice ; and justice itself 
must be sanctified by the word of God and 
prayer, and will then go on towards heaYen, 
when both robes, like paranymphs ^ attending 
a Yirgin in the solemnities of her marriage, 
helped to lead and to adorn her. 

Book I, Chap. lY, Paile X. 
EANDOM SHOTS, AND QUESTIONABLE COUNSELS. 

A Castilian gentleman, being new recoYered 
from the sad effects of a melancholy spirit 
and an affrighting conscience, and being en- 
tertained by some that waited on him with 
sports and innocent pastimes, to diYert his 
scaring thoughts, he with his company, shot 

'"' Bridemaids. 



144: THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

many arrows in a public field, at rovers; at 
that time tliere was a man killed, w^hetlier by 
Ills arrows or no, he knew not, and is forbid- 
den to inquire ; and his case had in it reason 
enongh to warrant the advice. The knowl- 
edge conld not have done him so mnch good, 
as it wonld have done him hnrt ; and it was 
better he should be permitted to a doubting 
than to a despairing conscience, as in his case 
it was too likely to have happened. It is bet- 
ter to be suspected than to be seen. 

^sJ ^ H^ H^ ^ ^ 

A priest, going to the "West-Indies, by mis- 
fortune wounds one of his company, whom, 
with much trouble and sorrow, he leaves to be 
cured of his hurt, but passes on to his voyage, 
which he finished at a huge distance from the 
place of his misfortune. The merchants come 
the next year that way, and he is unwilling to 
inquire concerning his sick friend; desirous 
he was to know good of him, but infinitely 
fearful lest he be dead :. consulting, therefore, 
with his superior in the case, was directed not 
to inquire, upon this account ; because, if the 
man were dead, the priest would be irregular, 
and a whole parish unprovided for, and left 
without rites and sacraments and public offi- 



LIMITED OBLIGATIONS. 145 

ces, which then and there conld not easily be 

supplied. Book I, Chap. Y, Kule IV. 

SCKUPLES. 

Some scruple at an innocent ceremony, and 
against all conviction, and armies of reason, 
will be troubled and will not understand ; this 
is very bad ; — but it is worse that he should 
think himself the more godly man for being 
thus troubled and diseased, and that, upon this 
account, he shall fall out with government, 
and despise it ; this man nurses his scruple 
till it proves his death ; and instead of curing 
a boil, dies with a cancer : and is like a man 
that hath strained his foot, and keeps his bed 
for ease, but by lying there loug, falls into a 
lipothymy,'^' and that bears him to his grave. 

Book I, Chap. VI, Rule V. 
LIMITED OBLIGATIONS. 

Every man is bound to restore his neigh- 
bor's goods when they are demanded ; but if 
he calls for his sword to kill a man withal, — 
there is equity in this case, and I am not guil- 
ty of the breach of the natural law, if I refuse 
to deliver him the sword, when he is so violent 

and passionate. Book II, Chap. I, Eule XIL 

'- A swoon. 
13 



CHAPTEE Xin. 

VACANT BISHOPRICS — DE. TAYLOR's CLAIMS — APPOINTED 
TO DOWN AND CONNOPw — MAEQUIS OF OEMOND — THE 

TTOETHY COMMUNICANT — YAEIETY OF YIEWS THE DOYE 

CONSECRATION — BEREAYEMENT INCUMBENTS OF PAR- 
ISHES AGREEMENT AT BREDA CONFERENCE SECTARI- 
AN STRIFE IN BISHOP TAYLOR's DIOCESE SCOTCH AND 

IRISH — TRINITY COLLEGE — DROMORE CONCILIATION. 

DURIXG the long period of the suppression 
of Episcopacy many bishoprics had be- 
come vacant. These were now to be filled. 
On political grounds no one had better claim 
to promotion than Dr. Taylor. In those qual- 
ifications which rise far above all political 
grounds no one ever possessed greater claims. 
His piety and learning were admitted by his 
opponents as unreservedly as by his friends, 
and this too in an age in which the bitterness 
of sectarian hate was "added to that apparently 
inseparable from- political strife. He had 
borne adversity cheerfully, and in the pell mell 
of confiscations, losses and uncertainties, main- 
tained by his industry an unblemished pe- 



THE IRISH BISHOPRIC. 147 

cmiiaiy reputation. He might have claimed, 
and, had he urged his claim, probably receiv- 
ed, a far more important diocese than that of 
Down and Connor, in Ireland, to which he was 
speedily appointed. Dr. Taylor's wishes were 
however doubtless consulted. He had become 
attached to the district where he was now res- 
ident ; forming a portion of the diocese over 
which he was called to preside. He was ac- 
quainted with its spiritual wants, and he was 
also perhaps loath to disturb his family, now 
comfortably established after many changes 
and privations. He was also, it is probable, 
strongly urged to accept the appointment by the 
Marquis, afterwards Duke of Ormond, a leading 
Irish nobleman and statesman, deeply interest- 
ed in the welfare of the Irish Church, and desir- 
ous that her vacant bishoprics should be filled 
by earnest, vigorous, and talented men. Soon 
after his compliance, he was elected, by this 
gentleman's influence, vice-chancellor of the 
University of Dublin. 

Before leaving England the Bishop-elect 
published ^^ The Worthy Oommunicant ; or, a 
Discourse of the N'ature, Effect, and Blessings, 
consequent to the worthy receiving of the 
Lord's Supper, and of all the duties required 



148 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TxiYLOE. 

in order to a wortliy preparation : together 
witli the Cases of Conscience occurring in the 
duty of him that ministers, and of him that 
communicates." The work was dedicated to 
Mary, eldest daughter of Charles the First, and 
the widowed mother of William, prince of Or- 
ange, afterwards king of England. 

This volume contains one of his beautiful 
similes. The passage has an additional claim 
to our regard from its evidence of his charita- 
ble consideration for the opinions of others. 
" Let no man," he says, '^ be less confident in 
his holy faith and persuasion concerning 
the greatest blessings and glorious effects 
which God designs to every faithful and obe- 
dient soul in the communication of these 
divine mysteries, by reason of any difference 
of judgment which is in the several schools of 
Christians concerning the effects and conse- 
quent blessings of this sacrament. For all 
men speak honorable things of it, except wick- 
ed persons and the scorners of religion ; and, 
though of several persons, like the beholders 
of a dove walking in the sun, as they stand in 
several aspects and distances, some see red, 
and others purple, and yet some perceive noth- 
ing but green, but all allow and love the beau- 



CONSi:CKATIOX. 149 

ties : so do the several forms of Cliristians, ac- 
cording as they are instructed by their first 
teachers, or their own experience, conducted 
by their fancy and proper principles, look upon 
these glorious mysteries." The volume also 
contained a sermon preached by Dr. Taylor at 
the funeral of Sir George Dalstone, of Dalstone, 
in Cumberland, September 28, 1657. 

Dr. Taylor was consecrated bishop, with the 
other divines appointed to the vacant Irish 
dioceses, twelve in number, by the Archbishop 
of Dublin, Primate of Ireland, in St. Patrick's 
Cathedral, on the 27th of January, 1661. The 
sermon, from the forty-third verse of the 
twelfth chapter of St. Luke, was preached by 
Dr. Taylor, and afterwards included in the fifth 
edition of his discourses. In February follow- 
ing, he was appointed a member of the Irish 
Privy Council. 

The joy of the family circle at the return of 
their beloved head invested with the high of- 
fice of a bishop, at the reflection that his and 
their sharp pecuniary trials were now over, and 
home and competence secured, was saddened 
by a heavy grief. The oft-berea\ed father 
was again called to mourn. His eldest and 
last remaining son was buried in the parish 
13* 



150 THE LIFE OF JEEEMY TAYLOE. 

cliurcli at Lisljuru, on the tenth of March, 
1661. 

The settlement of religions aft'airs in the 
TTnited Eingclom was a task attended with 
mneh difficnlty. Many Presbyterian and In- 
dependent clergymen had been placed in va- 
cant benefices and were not therefore liable, 
like many placed in similar positions by the 
forcible ejection of the rightfnl incnmbents, to 
a jnst call to yield their places to the former 
and rightful owners. It would have been well 
had the plan been followed to which Charles 
to some extent 23ledged himself at Breda, in 
the bai'2:ainino: which returned him to the 
thi'one. By this agi^eement the first-mention- 
ed class of ministers would have been left in 
peaceful possession of theii^ benefices, with the 
understanding that they were to be succeeded 
after then- decease by clergymen of the Church 
of England. Bishop Heber ui-ges that dissent, 
deprived of cause of complaint, would have 
gradually yielded to the strongly expressed 
preference of the people for the Litm^gy. 

A difterent course was however natm^ally, 
though we cannot but think unhaj)pily, adopt- 
ed, whereby the use of the Prayer-Book was 
again uniformly imposed. An attempt was 



THE CIIUKCH m IRELAND. 151 

made by a conference to render this precious 
Yolume the bond of union of all English Prot- 
estants, but in spite of the exertions of Eich- 
ard Baxter and Philip Henry, names to be ever 
held in reverence for learning and piety, mod- 
eration and charity, the plan was defeated. 
Churchmen did not yet appreciate the advan- 
tages of union. Dissenters, while admitting the 
pure doctrine and beauty of the Liturgy, and 
in many cases willing to submit to Episcopal 
government, maintained their old stand against 
wearing surplices, using the cross in Baptism, 
and kneeling at the Holy Communion. 

Sectarian difference, more rife in Ireland 
than England, was nowhere more bitter than 
in the diocese of Bishop Taylor. The energet- 
ic suppression of the rebellion in Ireland by 
Cromwell had placed the island entirely in the 
power of his party. Church of England cler- 
gymen were superseded by Presbyterian or In- 
dependent preachers. The confiscated estates 
fell into the hands of individuals of the same 
religious persuasion, and the dissenting inter- 
est was further strengthened by the settlement 
of many Scotch in the northern part of the 
country. 

The lower classes still adhered blindly to 



152 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

tlieir ancient faith, attaclied to it by hereditary 
custom and a feeling of nationality which en- 
deared their belief from a fancied connection 
with the soil, and identified Protestantism 
with invasion and tyranny. There seems to 
be little doubt that the evil was, in a great de- 
gree, owing to the neglect of the English in not 
providing a clergy skilled in the native dia- 
lects of the island. Had this course been 
adopted at the opening of the English Refor- 
mation much subsequent difficulty might have 
been avoided. 

The affairs of the university partook of the 
general embarrassment. Trinity College, Dub- 
lin, is familiar to us in this country from the 
initials T. C. D., which we have so often met 
appended to the names of our classical instruct- 
ors in school and college. The buildings still 
occupy the vast green, in the heart of Dublin, 
granted, with large productive endowments, 
by Queen Elizabeth, the founder. During the 
Commonwealth the affairs of the college had 
become disordered. The revenues were im- 
paired, a portion of the endowments alienated, 
and students and fellows admitted without 
regard to the requirements of the statutes. 
Bishop Taylor at once set himself to the labor, 



IIATEED TO EPISCOPACY. 153 

not only of restoring affairs to their former 
condition, but to completing tlie collection, ar- 
rangement, and revision of the college laws 
commenced by Bishop Bedell. He succeeded 
so well, that Bishop Heber attributes the high 
rank the institution has since maintained to the 
good order and discipline thus introduced. 

In the April following Bishop Taylor's /con- 
secration, the small diocese of Dromore, ad- 
joining his episcopal charge, was also placed 
under his care, "on account," in the words of 
the official record of his appointment, " of his 
virtue, wisdom, and industry." 

The Bishop had need of these qualities. 
Tlie general difficulties to which we have al- 
luded, pressed nowhere with greater weight 
than in his dioceses. Many of the sternest 
Presbyterians had emigrated from the west of 
Scotland across the narrow waters to this in- 
viting region. They retained all their attach- 
ment to the Covenant and dislike of Episcopa- 
cy. Their preachers formed a league among 
themselves "to speak with no bishops, and to 
endure neither their government nor their per- 
sons." They exhorted their congregations to 
pursue a similar course, denouncing alike the 
Episcopal office and its incumbent. 



154: THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

Bishop Taylor, meanwhile, pui-sued the con- 
ciliatory course reasonably to be expected from 
him by those familiar Tvith his career. He la- 
bored earnestly in his vocation, preaching 
everv Sundav in difierent chm'ches, visitinor his 
clergy, among whom the malcontents were in- 
cluded, inviting them to friendly conference 
on points of difference, and exerting himself 
to induce influential laymen to lend theii- aid 
in appeasing clerical sti'ife. The clergy held 
aloof, but the laity were won by this fail' and 
liberal com^se, so that by degrees the represent- 
atives of the principal estates and interests of 
the distiict came over, with one exception, to 
the Bishop's side, and it is asserted by Carte, 
in his life of the Duke of Onnond, that before 
the Act of Uniformity was passed, two years 
later, the maioritv of the clerev had been 
brought to a kindly appreciation of the Bish- 
op's liberality. 



CHAPTEE XIY. 

SERMON BEFOEE THE IRISH PARLIAMENT — SURPLICES — JUS- 
TICE — PITY — MR. EVELYN — CHOIR OF DROMOEE CATHE- 
DRAL — DR. RUST — SERMON BEFORE TRINITY COLLEGE — 
THE WOLF AT SCHOOL — REFORMATION — CONFIRMATION — 
SERMON AT THE FUNERAL OF THE LORD PRIMATE — THE 
HOPES OF MAN ^THE TRIUMPH OF THE CROSS. 

A PUBLIC occasion soon presented an op- 
portunity for a full exhibition of the new 
Bishop's views. We find him, in his sermon 
delivered before both houses of the Irish Par- 
liament, while alluding with, as we must con- 
sider, deserved censure to those who refused to 
wear a surplice, as " such as thought it a less 
sin to stand in separation from the Church, 
than to stand in a clean white garment," 
recommending to the fullest extent a course 
of conciliation on the one hand, and of absti- 
nence from factious opposition on the other. 

He pursues the same plan in reference to 
subjects of a social and political nature. He 
thus charges the legislators, by whom the 
questions respecting the confiscated estates 
were to be determined, a matter in which the 



156 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

property, feelings, and prejudices of almost 
the entire community were involved : 

'' Whatever you do, let not the pretence of a 
different religion make you think it lawful to 
oppress any man in his just rights; for opin- 
ions are not, but laws only, and ' doing as we 
would be done to,' are the measures of justice : 
and though justice does alike to all men, Jew 
and Christian, Lutheran and Calvinist, yet 
to do right to them that are of another opin- 
ion is the way to win them ; but if you, for 
conscience' sake, do them wrong, they will hate 
both you and your religion." 

He enforces his reasoning, after his wonted 
manner by a beautiful simile : 

MERCY. 

Surely no man is so much pleased with his 
own innocence, as that he will be willing to 
quit his claim to mercy, and, if we all need it, 
let us all show it. 

Naturae imperio gemimiis, cum funus adultae 
Yirginis occurrit, vel terra clauditur infans, 
Et minor igne rogi ! 

If you do but see a maiden carried to her 
grave a little before her intended marriage, or 
an infant die before the birth of reason, nature 



JUSTICE AND MERCY. 157 

lias tauglit US to pay a tributary tear. Alas ! 
your eyes will behold the ruin of many fami- 
lies, which, though they sadly have deserved, 
yet mercy is not delighted with the spectacle ; 
and therefore God places a watery cloud in 
the eye, that, when the light of heaven shines 
on it, it may produce a rainbow, to be a sacra- 
ment and a memorial that God and the sons of 
God do not love to see a man perish. God 
never rejoices in the death of him that dies, 
and we also esteem it indecent to have music 
at a funeral. And as religion teaches us to 
pity a condemned criminal, so mercy inter- 
cedes for the most benign interpretation of the 
laws. You must, indeed, be as just as the 
laws : and you must be as merciful as your 
religion : and you have no way to tie these 
together, but to follow the pattern in the 
mount ; do as God does, who in judgment re- 
members mercy. 

On the sixteenth of ITovember of this year, 
Bishop Taylor addressed a letter from Dublin 
to his friend Evelyn, written with his usual 
warmth. It is the last which has been pre- 
served, and is supposed to have been the last 
which passed between the parties. 
14 



158 THE lifp: of jerkmy taylok. 

The cessation is to be attributed, not to any 
falling off in friendship, but to the usual effect 
of distance, diversity of occupation, and the 
want of any exciting cause to call forth a let- 
ter. We therefore are to part here with one 
of the most attractive characters of our narra- 
tive. It is pleasant to remember that Mr. Ev- 
elyn lived several years later, passing through 
the devolution of 1688, and maintaining 
through all changes of dynasty and party, an 
amiable and honorable demeanor, which ren- 
dered him a favorite with all classes and sects. 

Many years after Bishop Taylor's death, we 
find an allusion to Mary Marsh as " the daugh- 
ter of his worthy and j)ious friend, the late 
Bishop of Down and Connor." 

In this same year. Bishop Taylor rebuilt the 
choir of his cathedral at Dromore at his own 
expense, his wife presenting at the same time 
a set of communion plate. He also strength- 
ened the clerical force of his diocese by invit- 
ing over George Eust, a fellow of Christ's Col- 
lege, Cambridge, and appointing him, soon 
after his arrival, to the deanery of Connor. 
Dr. Rust preached his friend's funeral sermon 
and succeeded him in his bishopric. 

Bishop Taylor's liberality was not confined 



CHARITY. 159 

to chnrch. restoration. Dr. Eiist's sermon 
bears emphatic testimony to the extent of his 
benefactions at this period. "He was not 
only a good man Godwards, bnt he was come 
to the top of St. Peter's gradation, and to all 
his other virtues added a large and diffusive 
charity ; and whoever compares his plentiful 
incomes with, the inconsiderable estate he left 
at his death, will be easily convinced that 
charity was steward for a great proportion of 
his revenue. But the hungry that he fed, 
and the naked that he clothed, and the dis- 
tressed that he supplied, and the fatherless that 
he provided for ; the poor children that he put 
to apprentice, and brought up at school, and 
maintained at the university, will now sound 
a trumpet to that charity which he dispersed 
with his right hand, but would not suffer his 
left hand to have any knowledge of it." 

In 1662, Bishop Taylor printed his Yia In- 
telligentim^ a sermon preached before the Uni- 
versity of Dublin. It follows the train of 
thought of his Liberty of Prophesying^ show- 
ing us that holiness is the best protection 
against the reception or growth of error, and 
that the aid of the Holy Spirit will be extend- 
ed to all who seek its guidance to truth. He 



160 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOE. 

qualifies tlie universal range of this sentiment 
by the declaration, that if " by opinions men 
rifle the affairs of kingdoms, it is also as 
certain, they ought not to be made public and 
permitted ;" an admission of a dangerous char- 
acter from the difficulty of restraining it with- 
in proper bounds. 

We extract two characteristic passages from 
this discourse. 

THE WOLF AT SCHOOL. 

Every man understands by his affections, 
more than by his reason ; and when the wolf 
in the fable went to school to learn to spell, 
whenever letters were told him, he could nev- 
er make any thing of them but agmis * he 
thought of nothing but his belly: and if a 
man be very hungry, you must give him meat 
before you give him counsel. 

REFORMATION. 

We talk much of reformation ; and (blessed 
be God) once we have felt the good of it : but 
of late we have smarted under the name and 
pretension : the woman that lost her groat, ever- 
Tit doviitm^ not evertit: she swept the house, 
she did not turn the house out of doors. Tliat 



A WORM AND MORTAL MAN". 161 

was but an ill reformation that untiled tlie 
roof, and broke the walls, and was digging 
down the foundations. 

In the following year. Bishop Taylor added 
"A Defence and Introduction to the Eite of 
Confirmation," three Sermons preached at 
Dublin, and a Funeral Discourse on the Pri- 
mate, Archbishop Bramhall, to the long list of 
his writings. The Funeral Discourse contains 
two of his finest passages. 

THE HOPES OF MAK 

As a worm creeping with her belly on the 
ground, with her portion and share of Adam's 
curse, lifts up her head to partake a little of 
the blessings of the air, and opens the junc- 
tures of her imperfect body, and curls her lit- 
tle rings into knots and combinations, drawing 
up her tail to a neighborhood of the head's 
pleasure and motion ; but still it must return 
to abide the fate of its own nature, and dwell 
and sleep upon the dust : so are the hopes of 
a mortal man; he opens his eyes and looks 
upon fine things at a distance, and shuts them 
again with weakness, because they are too glo- 
rious to behold ; and the man rejoices because 
14* 



162 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

he hopes fine things are staying for him ; but 
his heart aches because he knows there are a 
thousand ways to fail and miss of those glories ; 
and though he hopes, yet he enjoys not; he 
longs, but he possesses not ; and must be content 
with his portion of dust, and being a worm 
and no rnan^ must lie down in this portion, be- 
fore he can receive the end of his hopes, the 
salvation of his soul in the resurrection of the 
dead. 

THE TRIUMPH OF THE CROSS. 
Presently it came to pass, that men were no 
longer ashamed of the cross, but it was worn up- 
on breasts, printed in the air, drawn upon fore- 
heads, carried upon banners, put upon crowns 
imperial ; presently it came to pass, that the 
religion of the despised Jesus did infinitely 
prevail: a religion that taught men to be 
meek and humble, apt to receive injuries, but 
unapt to do any ; a religion that gave counte- 
nance to the poor and pitiful, in a time when 
riches were adored, and ambition and pleasure 
had possession of the heart of all mankind ; a 
religion that would change the face of things, 
and the hearts of men, and break vile habits 
into gentleness and counsel ; that such a reli- 
gion, in such a time, by the sermons and con- 



PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 163 

duct of fishermen, men of mean breeding and 
illiberal arts, should so speedily triumph over 
the philosophy of the world, and the argu- 
ments of the subtle, and the sermons of the elo- 
quent ; the power of princes and the interests 
of states, the inclinations of nature and the 
blindness of zeal, the force of custom and the 
solicitation of passions, the pleasures of sin and 
the busy arts of the devil ; that is, against wit 
and power, superstition and wilfulness, fame 
and money, nature and empire, which are all 
the causes in this world that can make a thing 
impossible ; this, this is to be ascribed to the 
power of Grod, and is the great demonstration 
of the resurrection of Jesus. Every thing was 
an argument for it, and improved it ; no ob- 
jection could hinder it, no enemies destroy it ; 
whatsoever was for them, it made the religion 
to increase ; whatsoever was against them, it 
made it to increase ; sunshine and storms, 
fair weather or foul, it was all one as to the 
event of things : for they were instruments in 
the hands of God, who could make what him- 
self should choose to be the product of any 
cause; so that if the Christians had peace, 
they went abroad and brought in converts ; if 
they had no peace, but persecution, the con- 



164: THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

verts came in to tliem. In prosperity they 
allured and enticed the world by the beauty of 
holiness ; in affliction and trouble they amazed 
all men with the splendor of their innocence, 
and the glories of their patience ; and quickly 
it was that the world became disciple to the 
glorious Nazarene, and men could no longer 
doubt of the resurrection of Jesus, when it 
became so demonstrated by the certainty of 
them that saw it, and the courage of them 
that died for it, and the multitudes of them 
that believed it ; who by their sermons and 
their actions, by their public offices and dis- 
courses, by festivals and eucharists, by argu- 
ments of experience and sense, by reason and 
religion, by persuading rational men, and es- 
tablishing believing Christians, by their living 
in the obedience of Jesus, and dying for the 
testimony of Jesus, have greatly advanced his 
kingdom, and his power, and his glory, into 
which he entered after his resurrection from 
the dead. For he is the first-fruits ; and if we 
hope to rise through him, we must confess that 
himself is first risen from the dead. 



CHAPTEE XY. 

DISSUASIVE FEOM POPEEY — OBSTACLES TO PEOTESTANTISM 

IN lEELAND — lEISH CLEEGT DUEL — CHAELE8 TAYLOE 

DEATH POSTHUMOUS WOEKS DE. EUSt's SEEMON 

BISHOP TAYLOE's EEMAINS — HIS WIDOW AND DAUGHTEE8 

WILLIAM TODD JONES EDWAED JONES — PEESONAL 

APPEAEANOE — POETEAITS. 

IN" 1664, Bishop Taylor publislied a Dissua- 
sive from Pojpery^ prepared at the request 
of his brother prelates. The reformed doc- 
trines had as yet made but little impression 
upon the uneducated Irish people. The fault 
lay to a great extent with their English rulers, 
who in their desire to make the English lan- 
guage supplant the native dialect, and partly 
perhaps from sheer neglect, omitted to send 
preachers practised in the Irish language 
among the people. Instead of this, an estab- 
lishment was set up, and the people required 
not only to support but to attend, under penal- 
ty of fine, a service which was unintelligible 
to them. They were not even supplied with a 
Bible which they could read. 



166 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

Another difficulty lay in the differences 
among the Protestants. Many of these were 
Calvinists, and almost as bitterly opposed to 
the Church of England as to the Church of 
Eome. Concerted action seemed therefore im- 
possible. Single individuals had from time to 
time attempted some proselytizing movements, 
and with marked success, but this had not 
encouraged to any wider effort. 

The Roman Catholic clergy were meanwhile 
using every exertion to perpetuate their hold 
upon the people. One of the most efficient 
means to accomplish this was by identifying 
their religious belief with the feeling against 
English rule. So far as they could, and their 
power was, as it has continued, great, they 
kept their congregations in ignorance. 

Bishop Taylor's treatise was not intended to 
meet the wants of the common people, except 
through the medium of instructors. He sets 
forth in it, the great arguments furnished by 
the learned and able heads of the Reformation 
against the corruptions of Rome. He has 
himself alluded to the obstacles in the way of 
reaching the ear of the many. " We humbly 
desire of God," he devoutly says, " to accept and 
to bless this well-meant labor of love, and that 



THE IRISH CLERGY. 167 

by some admirable ways of his prov^idence, lie 
will be pleased to convey to them, the notices 
of their danger and their sin, and to deob- 
struct the passages of necessary truth to them ; 
for we know the arts of their guides, and that 
it will be yery hard that the notice of these 
things shall ever be suffered to arrive to the 
common people, but that which hinders will 
hinder, until it be taken away ; however, we 
believe and hope in God for remedy." 

It is to be regretted, that, as Bishop Heber 
suggests, a remedy was not sought for this 
state of things by the education of missionaries 
to address the people in their own tongue. 
This, however, could not have been accomplish- 
ed by Bishop Taylor without the co-operation 
of his brother bishops and the government, 
but it is to be regretted that he did not see and 
point out some plan of the kind. 

This was the last of Bishop Taylor's publica- 
tions, and when we speak of the end of his lit- 
erary career, the reader will be prepared for 
the speedy close of all his earthly affairs ; for 
his hand, so practised and industrious in au- 
thorship, was not one to drop the pen until the 
last moment. The little intervening space was, 
however, like almost all the years that had 



168 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOE. 

gone, marked by trouble. Bishop Taylor had, 
as we have seen, buried not long before the 
only remaining son of his second marriage. 
Two sons by the first union were left. One of 
these, a captain of horse in the king's service, 
engaged in a duel with a brother officer of the 
name of Vane, in which both were mortally 
wounded. It was a sore death to die, at once 
the perpetrator and the victim of violence, and 
however the then prevalent laws of society 
may have fallen short of the condemnation 
they would now pronoimce, we cannot but be- 
lieve that if the sad news reached his ear^ the 
father's sorrow at his son's death, deepened in- 
to anguish over its unworthy cause. He must 
have thought sadly of his own words in "The 
Apples of Sodom," " K his children prove vi- 
cious or degenerous, cursed or unprosperous, 
we account the man miserable, and his grave 
to be strewed with sorrows and dishonors." 
After quoting in the same discourse from clas- 
sic story, many examples of unworthy sons of 
noble sires, he concludes " posterity did weep 
afresh over the monuments of their brave pro- 
genitors, and found that infelicity can pursue 
a man and overtake him in his grave." 
The second son, Charles, was designed for 



DEATH AND BURIAL. 169 

Holy Orders. He was qualified for tlie degree 
of Master of Arts at Trinity College, Dublin, 
bnt instead of entering tlie Church, pursued 
the very opposite course of becoming the com- 
panion and at last the secretary of the profli- 
gate Duke of Buckingham, in whose house at 
Baynard's Castle he died of a decline; and 
was buried in St. Margaret's church, "Westmin- 
ster, on the second of August, 1667. It is sur- 
mised that the father may have been spared 
the knowledge of this second bereavement, as 
he was the day after the funeral stricken with 
a fever, which in the brief space of ten days 
reached a fatal termination on the thirteenth 
of August. 

A second part of the Dissuasive from Pojpery^ 
prepared in reply to certain strictures on the 
first part, by John Serjeant, a Romish priest, 
was in the hands of the printer at the time of 
the author's decease. It was soon after pub- 
lished. Another posthumous work, a Dis- 
course on Christian Consolation^ appeared in 
1671, and Contemjolations on the State of Man^ 
a production apparently unfinished and unre- 
vised, followed in 1684. 

Bishop Taylor was buried in the church at 
Dromore. The funeral sermon was preached 
15 



170 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOE. 

by his friend Dr. Eust, who succeeded to his 
vacant episcopate. The discourse is much in 
the style of the deceased Bishop's pulpit com- 
positions. It contains a brief outline of his 
friend's career, and a most eulogistic enumera- 
tion of his virtues. " To sum up all in a few 
words," he says, "this great prelate had the 
good humor of a gentleman, the eloquence of 
an orator, the fancy of a poet, the acuteness of 
a schoolman, the profoundness of a philoso- 
pher, the wisdom of a counsellor, the sagacity 
of a prophet, the reason of an angel, and the 
piety of a saint ; he had devotion enough for 
a cloister, learning enough for a university, 
and wit enough for a college of virtuosi : and 
had his parts and endowments been parcelled 
out among his poor clergy that he left behind 
him, it would, perhaps, have made one of the 
best dioceses in the world." 

The Bishop's remains were deposited in a 
vault beneath the communion table. This 
vault was opened about the year 1826, and 
found to contain a leaden coffin, marked with 
the initials, J. T. His resting-place remained 
unmarked by any memorial until 1827, when 
Bishop Mant united with the clergy of his 
diocese in placing a white marble tablet in 



BISHOP Taylor's descendants. lYl 

the interior of Lisburn Cathedral. The slab 
bears an appropriate inscription. It is deco- 
rated on the right side by a crosier, and at the 
top by a sarcophagus, on which rests a Bible 
and mitre. 

Bishop Heber states that the remains were 
disturbed a century after the interment to give 
place for the coffin of a recently deceased prel- 
ate, and that they were afterwards reverently 
replaced by a worthy successor, Bishop Percy, 
the editor of the " Reliques." 

Dr. Mant, in his History of the Church of 
Ireland^ has well nigh disproved this story. 
He shows that but one bishop, Marlay, died in 
possession of the see of Dromore, from 1713 to 
the commencement of Bishop Percy's adminis- 
tration in 1781. Bishop Marlay died suddenly 
at Dublin in 1Y63. There is no evidence that 
the place of his interment was at Dromore, or, 
if it was, that the former tenant of the vault 
made way for the new. 

Bishop Taylor's widow lived for several 
years after her husband's decease. Three 
daughters survived him. The eldest, Phoebe, 
died unmarried. Mary, the second, the wife 
of Dr. Francis Marsh, afterwards Bishop of 
Limerick, and Archbishop of Dublin, has nu- 



172 THE LIFE OF JEEE^^IY TAYLOE. 

merous descendants. Joanna, the third, mar- 
ried Edward Harrison, for many years the rep- 
resentative of Lisbnm, in the Irish Parliament. 
One of their descendants, 'William Todd Jones, 
also the representative oi Lisbnm, collected 
materials fi'om the family papers for the Bish- 
op's biography. Among these were. Bishop 
Heber informs ns, - a series of antograph let- 
ters to and from the Bishop ; and a * family 
book' also in his own handwriting, giving an 
acconnt of his parentage, and the piincipal 
events of his life, with comm'ents on many of 
the pnblic transactions in which he himself, or 
those connected with him, had borne a share.'' 
Mr. Jones was prevented, by his sndden death 
in ISIS, from accomplishing his design, and his 
papers have nnfortonately disappeared. His 
brother, Edward Jones, is reported by Bishop 
Heber, as "solicitor-general to the State of 
Xorth Carolina, where he is now living, with 
a numerous family.'' 

Bishop Taylor seems to have retained 
through life much c»f the personal beauty 
which was so often noticed c-n his first appear- 
ance as a preacher, ffis portrait was fre- 
quently engraved during his life for various 
editions of his writings. He appears to have 



PORTIIAITS. 173 

twice sat to artists. The first-executed painting 
is known only by a copy, the original having 
been lost in a river during the removal of the 
owner's efi'ects. It presents a pleasing, cheer- 
ful countenance, with an aquiline nose, full, 
dark, benevolent eyes, and curling hair. The 
second portrait, in the Hall of All Souls' Col- 
lege, Oxford, was taken at a later period. The 
full eye and benevolent expression remain, but 
a grave air is spread over the features and a 
closer cap has taken the place of the flowing 
locks. We have copied an engraving from 
the first of these in the illustration to this vol- 
ume. An excellent engraving of the second is 
prefixed to Bishop Heber's edition of his 
workf^. 

15* 



CHAPTER XYI. 



THE SHAKESPEARE OF THEOLOGY — BOOKS AND NATUEK 

A LIBRARY OF THEOLOGY — EXTRACTS — AMPLIFICATION 

VARIED LEARNING AN INDUSTRIOUS AND PRACTISED 

WRITER NOT AN ASCETIC — DEDICATIONS — ELOQUENCE 

ORIGINAL DELIVERY — PERMANENCE OF REPUTATION 

PARALLEL — CONCLUSION. 

JEREMY TAYLOR lias been called the 
Shakespeare of Theology. The title was 
conferred by one of the first critics and philos- 
ophers of English literature, Samuel Taylor 
Coleridge, and its truth and beauty have been 
so widely recognized that it now seems insep- 
arable from the name. Taylor was a far great- 
er scholar than Shakespeare, but he used books 
as the poet used nature, culling everywhere 
some form of beauty. Many of his finest al- 
lusions, his most eloquently told and aptly 
pointed narratives, are from old forgotten folios 
of scholastic lore, requiring an insight, pa- 
tience, and charity to educe living thought 
and practical good akin to that which found 



TAYLOR AND SHAKESPEAKE. 175 

*' Sermons in stones, books in the running brooks, 
And good in every thing." 

But the great scholar of books was far from 
forgetting nature. His sonl was too full of the 
love of God to neglect the manifestations of 
His goodness in " all things both great and 
small." He has drawn illustrations constantly 
from natural objects: the music of birds, the 
swaying of the tree-tops, the beauty of flowers, 
the glory of blended earth and sky, are all re- 
produced in his pages. A dweller for the 
greater part of his life among rural scenes, it is 
evident that he enjoyed and assimilated their 
beauties. 

Bishop Taylor resembles Shakespeare in the 
wide spread of his sympathies, and the wide 
range of his thought. He has furnished us 
in his writings with almost a complete library 
of theology. He has guided our public and 
private devotions, has preached to us, has told 
us the story of our Saviour's life, has prepared 
us for the sacraments and rites of the Church, 
has given us instruction for our conduct in life 
and preparation for death, has defended the 
doctrines of the Church from the attacks of 
Komanist and dissenter, and furnished a " Kule 



176 THE LIFE OF JEKEMY TAYLOK. 

of Conscience," for the regulation of our pub- 
lic and private acts. 

Bishop Taylor delights in amplification. He 
builds up a simile or an argument, adding sen- 
tence to sentence, running on sometimes for 
a page or two without resting at a period, so 
that we have some difficulty in returning to 
the main subject of the discourse. This con- 
veys an impression of diifuseness, when the 
fault does not really exist, for we shall find this 
extraneous matter as full of thought and con- 
scientious labor as the rest. The long senten- 
ces at first seem involved, but if we examine 
them carefully, we shall find their construction 
simple. 

The learning of Jeremy Taylor, was, as we 
have seen, of the most extended and varied na- 
ture. He has not only the Fathers and the 
Councils but the Jewish rabbis and the East- 
ern philosophers at his fingers' ends. He is at 
home not only with the classical authors of 
Greece and Rome, but with obscure writers 
of the two Empires. He draws so many illus- 
trations from medical science, that if inclined 
to the theoretical style of biography we might 
allege that he had been a student at his broth- 
er-in-law's apothecary shop. He is familiar 



DIFFICULTIES OVERCOME. 1Y7 

with the science of his day, the entire range 
of history, and an allusion to the " Grand Cy- 
rus" shows that the fashionable novel of the 
time was not beneath his notice. This mass of 
erudition, which would be remarkable in any 
long life of learned leisure, becomes a still 
greater marvel when we remember Dr. Tay- 
lor's unsettled career, and the limited opportu- 
nities he must have enjoyed, even in his retire- 
ment at Golden Grove, and in Ireland, for 
consulting great collections of books. 

The vast bulk of Bishop Taylor's writings 
bear evidence, with his store of learning, not 
only to wonderful industry and memory, but to 
wonderful powers of rapid literary composi- 
tion. Some of his most elaborate productions 
were prepared in the hubbub of the camp, or 
the school-house. Others were written when a 
strong effort of will must have been needed, 
as he sat down to his desk, to drive away for a 
time the anxieties of the prison, the hiding- 
place, the wife and children in poverty. He 
must at times have written hastily as well as 
rapidly, and to this may be attributed his oc- 
casional error in citing, for chance illustration, 
evident fable for veritable history, some trick 
of alchemy as scientific truth ; or yielding a 



178 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOE. 

too easy credence to the gorgon tales of some 
far wandering traveller. 

Jeremy Taylor has been called an ascetic. 
To " youth and joy," the solemn subject and 
style of his volumes are probably not attract- 
ive, but we have not far to travel over the 
rough path of the world, to give us cause to 
turn with thankfulness to their warning and 
consolation. They must be judged from the 
fair ground of an average experience. His 
style maintains a fitting gravity and elevation, 
but we look in vain for any sympathy with 
the repressive system of the monk, the Puritan, 
or the dyspeptic school of modern times, which 
would turn the wedding-wine back to water, 
stop the music and dancing which gladdened 
the ear of the returning prodigal, and substi- 
tute " a dinner of herbs" for the fatted calf of 
the domestic board. Dr. Taylor's writings, 
far from showing a lack of sympathy with the 
innocent enjoyments of health and vigor, or 
the merciful alleviations of pain and sickness, 
exhibit their writer as one who had a hearty 
sympathy with home, and family, and the 
world at large. The whole tenor of his life 
bears a like genial testimony. He was so 
far from undervaluing cheerfulness, that he 



DEDICATIOI^S. 1Y9 

has, in several of his illustrations, given evi- 
dence both of the possession and appreciation 
of hnmor. 

The dedications which Bishop Taylor pre- 
fixed to his different works are long and pro- 
fuse in compliment. A charge has been based 
upon them, that their author was a mean flat- 
terer of the great. It seems to us a sufficient 
answer to this charge, that one of these dedi- 
cations was addressed to a king virtually de- 
throned, and kept its place after the monarch's 
head had fallen from the block. Another is 
also found in the formal custom of the time. 
An introduction to the translation of the Bible 
addressed to Queen Victoria, would not prob- 
ably be written in the style of that addressed 
to Jame sthe First ; and Jeremy Taylor, if writ- 
ing at the present day, would probably word 
his dedications in a more condensed form than 
he adopted two hundred years ago. The faults 
of the time must not be weighed too heavily 
on the shoulders of the individual. 

It is as hard to describe the eloquence of 
Jeremy Taylor, as to portray the clouds piled 
on clouds, now all aglow with the ruddy 
glory of the sunset, now dark and terrible 
with presage of the coming tempest. He 



180 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

heaps illiistration upon illustration, and blends 
sonorous phrase of trumpet tone with gentle 
words of lute-like whisper, in such profusion 
and at such length, that we sometimes pant in 
following him. 

These sermons, suggestive of cathedral gran- 
deur, which should seem to have been deliv- 
ered before princes and potentates, before 
mighty armies girded for battle, before the 
vast citj throng elated by public rejoicing, or 
bowed in a common grief at the open grave 
of some great benefactor, found their first au- 
ditors in quiet village churches. We fancy 
the great sentences bounding back upon the 
speaker from the narrow wall. TTe fancy him 
soon wearying of intellectual toil for such in- 
considerable results. Why spread so magnifi- 
cent a feast for so few guests ? He remem- 
bered the liberality of the Church at whose al- 
tar he served. The sublimities of her Liturgy 
were lavished in all their fulness on the hum- 
ble as on the mighty, on the gathered two or 
three as on the innumerable throng. The 
Church always gave her best, and he followed 
her example. 

A simpler style might perhaps have been 
better adapted to an uneducated auditory, but 



HOUSEHOLD REPUTATIOlsr. 181 

it is by no means probable that Jeremy Tay- 
lor's small congregations were entirely made 
up of unlearned men. The troubles of the 
times drove many of high birth and culture 
to retirement. Golden Grove was for some 
time near the scene of action, and many no 
doubt improved the opportunity of hearing 
the great divine. The ordinary household of 
Golden Grove was, as we have seen, graced by 
intellectual and moral worth, and constantly 
reinforced by guests of like disposition. 

It matters little now, whether the auditors 
of Jeremy Taylor were few or many, rich or 
poor, whether they listened or dozed beneath 
his pulpit. The sound of his noble sermons 
went forth through the little chapel windows 
to the world beyond as effectually as if it had 
first hovered over a sea of faces, and echoed 
from pointed arch or rounded dome. It has 
gone forth to all lands, and is heard in well 
nigh every household. 

His Holy Living and Dying ^ The Great Ex- 
emplar^ the Golden Grove^ and other devotion- 
al works have not only kept place with the Ser- 
mons in their fame, but have won a still more 
enviable place in the affection of those who 
care for such things. The Holy Living and 
16 



182 THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. 

Dying has been the constant companion of 
the midway and closing years of many. The 
Great Exemplar has often passed, hallowed by 
pious hopes, from the trembling hand of age 
to the firm grasp of youth. The Golden Grove 
has brought a better than golden comfort to 
the humble closet and the sick man's pillow. 

"We can easily trace a parallel to the darker 
days of this great career. Jeremy Taylor, in 
his little country parish, struggling to support 
a wife and children by teaching school to eke 
out a scanty stipend, furnishes a picture to be 
readily matched in our own time and clime, 
but too often unrelieved by the genialities of 
a Golden Grove or the sympathies of a Count- 
ess of Carbery. We cannot hope that a com- 
mensurate success will follow a commensurate 
privation, that all young country parsons will 
turn out Jeremy Taylors, or even bishops. 
They may, however, follow out the suggestions 
connected with the surname rather than the 
baptismal appellation of our divine, and in- 
stead of lamenting that their lot is cast with 
the unappreciative, " whose talk is of bullocks," 
do their best cheerfully and unweariedly in a 
remote and limited sphere. The MS. volume 
of sermons may comeback in the same brown 



FIT AUDIENCE. 1^^ 

paper travelling-dress in which, it departed, in- 
stead of reappearing in the beauty of type, 
wafted over a sea of glory by favoring blasts 
from complimentary newspapers. The call 
may be long in coming, but the true scholar 
and clergyman will in some way find fit utter- 
ance, and be honored and prized by all to 
whom the Church, the Church of the strug- 
gling present as well as of the glorious past, is 
dear. 



THE END. 



Nov. 3 18G 






New Publications, 



I 



From The Church Book Society, 762 Broadway, New 
York :— 

The Lives of the Bishops : 

LIFE OF BISHOP BASS, 

LIFE OF BISHOP PROVOST, 

LIFE OF BISHOP STE^WART. 

These are tlie three last of the excellent series in course 
of publication by the Episcopal Sunday School Union, and 
written by the Eev. J. N. Norton. They have more than 
usual interest ; the first two embrace periods of history 
generally interesting to all. The life of Bishop Bass, of 
Massachusetts, gives us a picture of the early life of that 
far-famed colony, and biographical sketches of many 
prominent men, as well as the central portrait, its first 
bishop. 

Bishop Provost, of New York, was consecrated at the 
close of the Kevolutionary struggle, and his life necessarily 
attracts historical anecdotes and sketches of great value, 
many of them quite new. 

Bishop Stewart, of Quebec, was a rare instance of self- 
denying earnestness, in the work of his Master. He was 
the son of the Earl of Galloway, but gave up rank and 
place for the life of a frontier missionary, living in the 
most absolute simplicity, and giving his large private in- 
come away in public and private charities. The story 
shames us who sit at ecjse and wish the world made better. 
— Godey's Lady's Booh. 



New Publicati07i3, 



UNCA : A Story for Girls. 

By the author of ^^ Uncle Jack^ the Fault- Killer.'' 
Charmingly simple, and very attractive to children from 
six to ten. We recommend it for our Juvenile Library, 
No. 2. 

MOTES IN THE SUNBEAM, and 

THE CIRCLE OF BLESSING. 

By Mrs. Thomas Gatty. 
As children's books have a double work to do— instruct- 
ing the grown-up pupils of a family, as well as the children 
they are ostensibly provided for — we shall not quarrel with 
these fascinating little volumes because the moral of the 
tale and sometimes its arrangement are above the compre. 
hension of young readers. Some knowledge of natural 
history and much experience of life are required before 
their lessons, or even the graceful and happily-turned allu- 
sions with which they abound, can be fully appreciated. 
We commend them to all mothers, both for '' pleasure and 
profit." 

In OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES, by 

Aloe, we have those standard favorites: "Blue Beard,'' 
*'The Genii and Fishermen," the '' Singing Fountain," etc., 
paraphrased into most ingeniously instructive allegories. 
*^Blue Beard," for instance, is "Baron Procrastination," 
and slays the charming brides, " Study- Well," "Work- 
Well," "Please-my-Mother," "Speak-Kindly," "Help- 
Others," and "Rise-Early;" while " Consider- Well," the 
last, is only rescued by Sister "Try's" help, who discovers 
the brothers "Firmness" and "Sense" coming to pay 
them a visit. We wish we were "a boy again," when we 
see such aids to " Good Eesolution" held out to this rising 
generation. — Godey's Lady's Book. 
2 



New Publications, 



We have learned to welcome the packages of the PejOteS' 
TANT Episcopal Sunday School Union, assured that all their 
publications are useful, and many of them have rare merit. 
As a holiday gift suited to school-girls, we notice 

ELLIE RANDOLPH, 

By Miss Kitty J. Neely, 

a volume approaching the single tales of Miss Yonge in size, 
and which has for its purpose the illustration of the truth 
that those who choose "the good part" with Mary, accom- 
plish, by their quiet and consistent lives, more than Martha 
with her busy spirit and many cares. It is a story of 
Southern life, the characters well drawn, the aim of the 
book gradually unfolded, and the scenes touching or spir- 
ited, as the occasion demands. The whole tone of the book 
is admirable. Miss Neely is the sister of Mrs. Bradley, 
whose " Bread upon the Waters" and '' Douglass Farm" are 
known to many of our readers. 

CHRISTMAS VIGILS and CHRISTMAS EARN- 
INGS are two excellent little stories for younger children. 

With some of the HYMNS FOR A CHRISTIAN 

CHILD, our own little people have before this been made 
familiar. They are intended for quite young children. 

'^ Little children must be quiet, 
When to holy church they go," 

**The Christmas Hymn," and "Do no Sinful Action," are 
among their favorites. 

LITTLE FOOTPRINTS is the suggestive title of a 
touching little story of the life and death of " a Christian 
child. ' ' — Newspaper. 



New Piiblicaiions, 



Catechism of the Bible: 

The Church teaches her children not only to read the 
Word of God. but to pray that they may also '• mark, learn, 
and inwardly digest" that heavenly food of the soul. To 
follow out the figure presented in the last of these signifi- 
cant words, the digestiiig, it is necessary that the Holy Book 
be read, not only in large portions at a time, but be studied 
with a minute and particular care, without which its most 
nutritious parts are apt to escape the mind, and be thrown 
ofi' as little better than chaff. To bring out this faithful 
•horoughness, there is no method like the old catechetical 
system — the Church system par eminence. Major E. D. 
Townsend has furnished the Church with a catechetical 
volume of over 300 pages, devoted to the elucidation of the 
Pentateuch. The questions and answers are brief and perti- 
nent, the answers being for the most part embodied in the 
very words of Scripture, and from any part of it which best 
illustrates the subject in hand. The meanings of Hebrew 
names are given also, and many details of ancient manners 
and customs which render clearer the meaning of Holy 
Writ. Each Lesson is divided, moreover, into two parts, the 
former of which is suitable for younger children, and the 
latter for those that are further advanced. To the latter are 
appended Remarks, distinguished by brevity, good sense, 
and a devout and churchlike tone of thought and feeling, 
which give them no slight value. It is an unusual occur- 
rence, and one well worthy of special mention, that it is 
the Senior Major in the United States Army who has thus 
carefully prepared a book like this for the instruction of the 
children of the Church. — Church Journal. 
4 



THE 



LIFE OF CiEORGE HERBERT 

BY 

GEOKGE L. DUYCKINCK. 



George Herbert is of all England's sacred poets the 
most sure of an enduring fame. He was a true poet. 
His life, too, was a very lovely one—that of a true Chris- 
tian, of a scholar, a gentleman, and a faithful parish 
priest. More than this, he was beloved of dear old Izaak 
Walton, who wrote his life with that sweet homeliness of 
style which wins all honest hearts to him. Mr. Duyckinck 
has undertaken, in this pretty little volume, to set forth 
Herbert's life again ** with a simplicity of style and ful- 
ness of detail which should in some degree meet the re- 
quirements both of youthful and mature readers." He 
has been very successful in a not very easy task. He has 
come to the work imbued with a love of his subject, and 
thoroughly understanding it ; and he writes with an un* 
affected earnestness and purity quite in keeping with 
it. The young reader will find much valuable and inter- 
esting information in the book, upon matters kindred to 
or connected with its main purpose ; and it is calculated 
to foster a correct literary taste, no less than to beget a 
healthy moral tone. — Courier and Enquirer. 
30 



BIOGRAPHY OF THE 

BY THE REV. D. P. SANFORD, M.A.. 

OF BROOKLYN. 

^rtj^ a 39ortratt unts Sllustrattons. 

This work is prepared in a very careful and interesting 
style. The peculiar warmth, strength, and depth of 
Martyn's personal experience, with all its sensitiveness, 
tenderness, and wonderful boldness and energy, are faith- 
fully preserved, and illustrated with copious extracts from 
his private diary and coiTespondence. The more church- 
like features of his character, principles, and practice are 
not omitted or ignored, as is too commonly the case, but 
are fairly and truthfully stated. His extraordinary labors 
in the East — the breaking the soil, and watering the 
ground with his tears, and sowing the seed of the Word 
of Life — all this is narrated with genial spirit and patient 
minuteness, until his life of wondrous youth was crowned 
by an early death. Martyn, more than any other man, 
has been the germinant spirit of the missionary enter- 
prise that now distinguishes the Church ; and the vast 
power of his spiritual energy has made itself widely felt 
among the denominations around us, as well as among 
ourselves. His name has been music upon ten thousand 
tongues, and yet breathes fragrance from ten times ten 
thousand hearts. Mr. Sanford has done the Church a 
great service in placing so excellent a memoir of such a 
man on the shelves of our Sunday School libraries, where 
it will have the best chance to impregnate minds yet 
fresh and young with the best life of Martyn's singular 
self-devotion, and gentle, loving, and therefore irresist* 
Ible, power. 

11 



THE BOY MISSIONARY. 

BY MRS. JENNY MARSH PARKER. 



The Boy Missionary is one of the best things the 
Church Book Society has given us in a long while. The 
idea is, to show how a poor little boy — ^weak, sickly, and 
not able to study much — may have the spirit of a mis- 
sionary, and may, among his fellows, do the work of a 
missionary, too, even in boyhood ; while others, of more 
brilliant parts and more commanding social position, look 
forward to missionary life as something future and far 
distant, and find their days brought to an end before 
their work is even begun. The authoress, Jenny Marsh 
Parker, shows no small knowledge of boy nature, and 
the temptations incident to the life of boys in a country 
village. Davie Hall will make many missionaries, both 
tor the Far West and for home. — Church Journal. 

25 



BY GEORGE L. DUYCKINOK. 

New York, 1868 : pp.197. 



We have too long neglected to do our share in brmging 
this delightful little book to the notice of the lovers of 
holy George Herbert, among whom we may safely reckon 
a large number of the readers of the ** Atlantic." It is 
based on the life by Izaak Walton, but contains much new 
matter, either out of Walton's reach or beyond the range 
of his sympathy. 

Notices are given of Nicholas Ferrar and other friends 
of Herbert. There is a very agreeable sketch of Bemertou 
and its neighborhood, as it now is, and the neat illustra- 
tions are of the kiud that really illustrate. The Brothers 
Duyckinck are well known for their unpretentious and 
valuable labors in the cause of good letters and American 
literary history, and this is precisely such a book as we 
should expect from the taste, scholarship, and purity of 
mind which distinguish both of them. It is much the 
best account of Herbert with which we are aoquainted.^ 
AUantic Monthly. 

43 



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